Little Olympia: Love in Chaos
by Angelswontdie
Summary: A year ago Leila went on a vacation to Greece where she met H, a man who quickly swept her off her feet, and had a whirlwind romance which ended when she returned home alone. She didn't ask for his contact details, thinking she'd never see him again, not aware that she'd brought back a very special souvenir.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I am having some trouble with all the changes to ff since I lasted posted on here, but after a few tries I seem to be getting the hang of it. Sorry for anyone who was reading this before then, when the format was still a mess. It's better now, I think (I hope).**

**So, new story. I know I still haven't finished Wishes, but if my writers block for that story hasn't faded yet after 5 years, it probably never will.**

**Either way I hope you'll enjoy this new story of mine and tell me what you think. The total lack of feedback on the Wishes story is probably part of the reason why I ended up completely blocked on that one, so if you like this story, be sure to let me know and keep me motivated to keep writing.**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing, not that I think there's anything copywritable in this chapter.**

1.

"stop moving around," my mother complains when I try to get up from the uncomfortable wooden bench again.  
"stop forcing me to sit on these torture devices," I mumble, but I still sit back down.  
No sense in causing a scene just so my butt can get some relief.  
I lay my head on the back of the seat and close my eyes.  
I can hear my mother grinding her teeth in impatience to my left and to my right my little brother Alex is making no effort to hide his boredom, openly playing with his toy dinosaurs instead of paying attention to the man in the front of the church.  
I don't blame him. I'm not really listening either.  
There are only so many ways one can say 'you're all going to hell' before people start to lose interest.  
I just don't understand why the Christian religion is so determined to make it's followers as uncomfortable and unhappy as they possibly can be.  
Making us sit on uncomfortable wooden benches listening to some boring guy preaching about how we're all horrible people, how we deserve all the bad things that happen to us and telling us about all the great things in the world – alcohol, sex, tattoos,... – and then tell us we are actually not allowed to enjoy any of those things, because they are 'sinful'.  
Why so many people choose to become Christians, I will never understand.  
My mother says it gives her a sense of fulfillment and hope.  
I'm not seeing it.  
I see a miserable woman, terrified of accidentally doing bad things and being eternally punished for it, forcing herself into her uncomfortable Sunday clothes to go to church and then complaining the entire service long that me and my brother have both chosen to just forgo this madness she calls faith altogether.

"I had fun," Alex says when the service is finally over and our mother drags us along to go talk to the priest.  
The priest smiles at him and nods approvingly, starting a long monologue where he basically just repeats everything he talked about.  
I sigh and roll my eyes.  
If we were listening during the sermon, he wouldn't have to explain it to us again and if we weren't, well, what makes him think we'd pay attention now?  
Alex laughs and sits down on the floor a few feet away from the man, playing with his toys again.  
The priest doesn't seem to notice, he just keeps on babbling.  
"you are evil," I whisper, sitting down next to Alex.  
The floor is just as comfortable as those benches, so why not?  
"I am not," Alex says, managing to actually sound offended, though he ruins it by grinning widely.  
"I never claimed his speech was fun. I just said I _had_ fun, which I did," he says wisely.  
I laugh and shake my head.  
"you are evil," I just say again.  
"are you taking me to the playgrounds later?" he asks, putting down his toys and looking at me hopefully.  
"I don't know, kid," I say, pulling him onto my lap.  
"I'm a bit broke at the moment and that playground you love so much isn't cheap."  
"yeah, but they have a maze," he says, as if that makes up for that ridiculously high entry fee.  
I mean, twenty dollars per day, seriously?  
And that's only on off-peak days.  
Today is Sunday, so that's peak-prices.  
Today it's 22 dollars per hour.  
I sigh when Alex looks up at me with pleading eyes.  
"how about this, I'll take you there tomorrow after school," I say.  
He sighs deeply, a sad look in his eyes.  
"look, kid, it's just too expensive today. If we go today you can only play for one hour, if we go tomorrow you can play as long as you want," I explain.  
"as long as I want?" he asks, a mischievous twinkle appearing in his eyes.  
"well, up until closing time," I say and he sighs disappointedly, making me laugh.  
"sorry, no nighttime playground adventures for you, kid."

I sit on the backseat of the car on the way back home from church, staring open-mouthed at my mother, wondering – not for the first time – if she has finally lost her mind completely.  
"wait," I say, holding up my hands when she starts talking again.  
"so, let me see if I heard you correctly, you don't like the way I am raising Alex?" I ask.  
She nods, glaring at me in the rear view mirror.  
"you do realize Alex is_ your_ son, right? I shouldn't be raising him at all. That's your job. But for whatever stupid reason you refuse to, leaving it up to me to make sure he doesn't end up in the gutter. And now you're complaining that you don't like my methods of doing so? Well, have you ever heard the phrase 'if you want it done right, do it yourself'?" I ask.  
"as the eldest, it is your duty to take some of the weight off my back, taking up some responsibilities around the house. That includes helping me out with your brother," she says.  
"okay, sure. I'm not arguing that. But I'm not just helping you out with Alex. _I_ help him with his homework. _I_ make sure he goes to bed on time. I make sure he eats right and exercises. I help him with whatever problems he might have in life. I take him out to the playgrounds. I take him to the doctor when he gets sick or when he needs a flu-shot. I take him to the dentist. I bring him to his friends houses when he wants to have a sleepover or when there's a birthday party. And I pay for anything and everything he could ever want or need. Basically, _I'm_ the one raising him. And like I said, that's actually your job. If you don't like the way I'm raising him, try raising him yourself and see if you can do any better. As long as he's my responsibility, I'm raising him my way," I say.  
She starts to talk again, but I hold up my hands and close my eyes.  
"this conversation is over," I say, effectively shutting her up.  
Were I anyone but myself, she wouldn't give in so easily, but when I say a conversation is over, she knows I immediately stop listening.  
Whatever she says now will fall on deaf ears, so what's the point of continuing her rant?  
"I think you're doing a _fabulous_ job raising me," Alex says, flicking his short hair back and acting gay because he knows our mother hates it when he does that, making me laugh and lightening my heavy heart a bit.

I pick Elizabeth up from her crib and smile when she laughs and starts babbling.  
There is just something about a baby's laugh that can bring happiness to whoever hears it.  
I sit down on the old rocking chair in the corner of the room and lay her down on my lap, keeping my hands free.  
I don't actually need anything from her, but I read somewhere that babies require a lot of human contact, so I pick her up as often as I can.  
Most of the time I just lay her down in my lap and read a book or play a game on a handheld game console.  
I'm about to do just that when Alex walks into the room and sits down on the carpet, cradling his toys to his chest protectively.  
"what's up?" I ask him.  
He glares at the doorway before looking at me.  
"grams wants to take away my dino's as punishment for not paying attention in church," he says, glaring at the doorway again, where my mother now stands.  
"Alex, she's your mother, not your grandmother. And mother, as I've said in the car, if you want any say in the way he's raised, raise him yourself. But that means doing _everything_, including spending the time and money it costs to take care of him. Raising him is not just punishing him when he does something you don't like. It's punishing him as well as rewarding him. It's helping him with his problems and making sure he has everything he needs. It's looking after his health and making sure he grows up to be a wonderful man that any woman – or man – would be lucky to call her – or his – husband. So long as you are unable to do all that, you're staying away from his toys. Especially since I went to the store and bought them with _my_ money, which means you have absolutely no claim over them. Taking them away from him would therefore be considered stealing, which is a sin according to your church," I say, sighing deeply.  
I hate this.  
Not taking care of the young'uns.  
I love these two with all my heart.  
But this constant warfare with my mother over them is wearing me down.  
It would help if I had a father I could run to for interference, but he escaped a while ago, leaving me and Alex behind to bear all this insanity by ourselves.  
He had really horrible timing, too.  
He left on Alex' seventh birthday – he couldn't have waited just_ one_ more day? – as I was in my third trimester of pregnancy.

So there I was, hobbling around with a huge stomach, trying my damnedest to console Alex who was grieving over losing his father, keeping our mother off our backs, all the while trying to get just a few moments of rest so I wouldn't stress out the baby too much and maybe damage her health.  
I was as glad as any woman can be when she was finally born, because that meant I could do all those things and only risk harming myself with it.  
Not that that somehow makes this madness okay, but it makes it slightly less unacceptable.  
If it weren't for Alex, I would've just taken Elizabeth and gotten the hell out of the house, escaping like my dad did.  
I ignore my mother as she goes on one of her many rants and look down at my little angel.  
When she was just a few weeks old my mother dragged me and Alex to church, forcing me to leave Liz home alone.  
That lasted for about three minutes before I got too worried and hurried back home to check up on her.  
Ever since then my mother has allowed me to hire some girl from the neighborhood to look after Liz while I'm in church.  
She wouldn't allow that before because she claimed anyone who isn't at church at that time isn't worth having around.  
When I suggested I just take Liz with me to the service, she blew a gasket.  
I never married Elizabeth's father, so that makes her a bastard-child.  
Apparently bastards aren't allowed in church, because they are 'unclean' and 'unworthy'.  
Seriously?  
This little, beautiful, innocent angel in my arms is unclean and unworthy?  
By who's standards?  
Not mine, that's for sure.  
There is no person in that church as good and pure as Elizabeth.  
So what if I never married her father?  
Isn't that my sin?  
Why should she be punished for that?

I smile thinking about Elizabeth's father.  
Most people who see me, a twenty-two year old single mom, just assume that I hate Liz' father for leaving me or that I'm a slut.  
Neither is true.  
I met H in a bar when I was vacationing in Greece.  
Yeah, I call him H.  
Mostly because that's how he introduced himself to me.  
He later told me his parents had named him Hermes, but for obvious reasons Hermes isn't the best name to have, especially in Greece.  
Now, I'm not the type of girl who makes a habit out of sleeping with men I've only known for a few hours, so when – after a fun evening of talking and drinking together – he invited me over to his place, I refused and left, going back to my hotel alone.  
I thought that would be the end of it.  
He'd tried to seduce me, he failed.  
End of story.  
Apparently H had other idea's.  
He found out what hotel I was staying at – I still don't know how he did that, as all he knew about me was my first name and a few funny stories from my past – and showed up there the very next morning.  
Going down to the dining room I had to pass through the lobby and there he was, leaning against a wall, showing a wide grin that reminded me of Alex's face whenever he is up to some mischief.  
He even had that same twinkle in his eyes.  
We spent the next few days together, with him showing me all the beautiful and fun places in the country that aren't in any of the tourist leaflets and brochures.  
By my definition a slut is someone who has sex with people out of nothing but lust.  
Me, I did it out of love.  
H was kind, patient, smart and completely insane in all the best ways.  
So I fell in love and yes, I slept with him.  
Multiple times, actually.  
Sue me.  
Problem was, I wasn't a local, he was.  
I had to go back home eventually.  
So he never actually left me.  
I left him.  
Since he was always there when I woke up and stayed with me until I went back to bed – and eventually he stayed even those hours in-between – there was never any need for him to give me his contact-information.  
When I was packing my bags to go back home I contemplated asking him for his phone-number so we could keep in touch, but then I figured I probably shouldn't.  
They say a clean break heals faster, right?  
So I left without having any way to contact him.  
I thought it was for the best.  
Boy, was I wrong about that.  
Now I have this gorgeous little bundle of joy in my arms and no way of telling him he's become a father.

A friend of mine told me I should just go back to Greece and visit the places I know he frequents, asking anyone if they've seen him lately and if they know where I can find him.  
Just one problem with that plan: I barely have enough money to take care of 'my' two children.  
How am I supposed to pay for a trip like that?  
Well, it's almost Christmas and I made sure to tell everyone I know that they don't have to give me a present, just give me money instead, so I can go back to Greece and find my baby-daddy.  
My mother already has her present wrapped up in the closet.  
I doubt it's something I would even like.  
I'm pretty sure she bought it just to spite me.  
Up until now every single Christmas she just gave me a greeting-card with 20 bucks in it, never taking the time to pick out a present for me.  
But this one time I actually don't want a present, she decides to 'take the time' anyway.  
It doesn't matter.  
I doubt I'll be able to take the trip even if every single person I know – sans my mother – gives me money.  
The flight alone would cost me at least 1.000 dollars.  
Probably more, considering I'd have to take both the little ones with me.  
No way am I leaving Alex here alone with my mother and it wouldn't make much sense to go to Greece to tell H about Elizabeth and then leave her in America.  
And then there's the hotel.  
Unless I find H on our very first day there and he invites us to come stay with him, we'll need a place to lay our heads to rest at night.  
All in all it would cost me 2.000 dollars minimum to go there, stay there for a week and then come back.  
And what if it takes me longer than that to find H?

"you're thinking too hard," Alex says, snapping me out of my thoughts.  
"you think so?" I ask, smiling.  
"I don't know. Do you think I think you think too hard?" he asks, laughing.  
Honestly, that kid has the weirdest sense of humor.  
I wonder where he gets it from.  
Couldn't be from me.  
I'm completely and absolutely normal.  
Yeah, now if only I could actually convince myself of that, I might be able to convince others.  
"where did mother go?" I ask, looking at the doorway and finding it empty.  
"she yelled at you for a really long time, but you were just staring at Sisa, smiling, so she left," Alex says, shrugging.  
Another thing I don't understand about him.  
Ever since I told him I'd named Elizabeth, well, Elizabeth, he's taken to calling her Sisa.  
He says it's a mash-up of 'sister' and 'Lisa'.  
Since I've been the one raising him for as long as he can remember, he considers me to be his mother, not his sister.  
So that would make Liz his sister, not his niece.  
I sigh deeply.  
Our family is just so damn messed up.

"so, what were you thinking so hard about?" he asks, sitting down on the ground in front of my chair.  
"Liz' father," I admit.  
I never hide anything from Alex, so he knows all about H.  
Alex sighs and throws his hands up in an exasperated gesture.  
"I don't know why you're so determined to tell him about her. It's not like you two are going to marry and live happily ever after, what with you living here and him living all the way over there. What are you going to do? Get joint custody? Put her on a plane every other weekend so she can spend time with him?" he asks.  
He really is way to intelligent for his 7 years. I sigh.  
"I don't know what will happen," I admit.  
"but I know that, if I were a man and a woman would give birth to my baby, I'd at least want to know about it. I just don't want him to die someday never having known he has a daughter. Besides, what if Liz grows up and wants to meet her father someday? Am I just going to show up on his doorstep with a fourteen year-old, saying 'remember that time you slept with me all those years ago? Well, surprise!'?"  
"yeah, I guess that would be bad," Alex mumbles, sighing.  
I smile at him and shrug.  
"besides, Greece is a wonderful country. I want to take you there and have a real vacation, instead of our annual trip to the camping grounds two towns over."  
He smiles widely and nods.  
"oh, I'd love that. Well, I've already told everyone in my class that I want money for Christmas so I can meet my non-stepdaddy. And we don't really have to go to that expensive playgrounds tomorrow. We can just go to a free outdoor playground, even if it is a bit cold. And I'll do chores for people around the neighborhood for money and sell cookies or something, so that could help with the money-issue," he says, getting more exited with every passing second, as if he only now realized us going to Greece would be more than just a quest to find H, it would be a vacation.  
I laugh and shake my head.  
I wonder what H would think if he knew Alex has taken to calling him his 'non-stepdaddy'.  
Since Alex is 'my son' and H is my daughter's father, Alex reasoned H is like his stepfather, only I never actually married him, so he's not his stepfather, his non-stepdaddy.  
Seriously, our family is just so damn messed up.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: I'm uploading 3 chapters in one day today. Don't get used to it. It's just that it took me this long to figure out I do plan to continue this story, so I might as well put it online and maybe get some feedback for it as I do.**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing but paranoia over copywrite issues**

2.

"we're going to Greece, we're going to Greece," Alex sings, dancing around the room happily.  
I laugh. "I'm not sure yet, kid. We've gathered a lot of money, but I don't know if it'll be enough," I say.  
He stops dancing for a second, thinks about it and then shrugs, going back to his dancing.  
"what are you happy about now?" I ask.  
He laughs and shrugs again.  
"I just like dancing," he says.  
I shake my head, smiling, looking down at my computer, where the number on the screen shows all the money we've gathered these last two months.  
Christmas brought in more money then I'd expected and Alex' cookie-sale went much better than we thought it would.  
Probably because he tricked people into buying cookies out of sympathy.  
He twisted the true reason for our trip around a bit without ever actually lying, telling the story in such a way that people weren't entirely sure what was going on, but they knew Alex' daddy wasn't around and that his mommy had fallen in love with a Greek and conceived a child by him.  
Of course, he 'completely forgot' to tell them about the fact that I'm not his real mother and he never actually said anything about the gender of the child of the Greek, so people automatically assumed it was him.  
Especially around Christmas-time people are sensitive to things like that, so they bought a lot of cookies from him, wishing him luck in his quest to gather enough money to finally go meet his daddy.  
He gathered about 300 dollars just from selling simple chocolate chip cookies, the only kind I know how to make.  
All the Christmas 'presents' – mine and Alex' combined – added up to around 1.200 dollars.  
Alex gathered another 150 dollars doing chores for people, also a lot more than we'd expected.  
He probably told all those people the same story he told the people who bought his cookies.  
I also saved up some money by wearing my old shoes until they literally fell apart and eating cheaper – and less.  
All in all we gathered around 2.200 dollars.  
Is it enough? I have no idea.  
I know what that two-week trip cost me a year ago, but I went alone then.  
Now I want to take a one-week trip with two children in tow.  
Is that cheaper, because it's only one week?  
Or more expensive, because it's a trip for trice the people?  
And have the prices of the flight and hotel changed at all in this last year? Did it get cheaper? Or more expensive?  
I probably should've researched all this already, but I figured it'd take at least 3 more months to gather this much money, so I thought I'd have enough time in those months to figure all this out.

I crack my knuckles and sit back in my chair.  
Alex stops dancing – has he seriously been dancing for an hour straight? – and looks up at me hopefully.  
"was it enough?" he asks, his voice trembling with barely contained excitement.  
I sigh deeply, rubbing my hands over my face.  
I secretly smile when his face falls and his shoulders slump.  
"I hate packing," I mumble, making sure he hears me.  
"we're going to Greece!" he yells, punching his fists up in the air in victory.  
"yep," I say, smiling and pulling him onto my lap.  
"and it's all thanks to you being so evil."  
He laughs.  
"I never lied," he says, always his excuse.  
Alex has the uncanny ability to twist the truth to extreme extents without ever actually lying.  
Nobody knows where he gets that from.  
He didn't learn it from me, that's for sure.  
I'm often criticized for being too honest, telling the truth even when I know people don't want to hear it.  
I kiss him on the cheek and send him upstairs to go pack his bags.  
I planned a flight for two days from now.  
Now that I have the money, the only thing that was stopping me from going on this trip, and Alex doesn't have to go back to school for another week, so he'll only have to skip two or three days, I don't see the point in waiting any longer than is absolutely necessary.  
The only reason I didn't plan the flight for this very evening is that it was cheaper to go two days from now.  
300 dollars cheaper to be exact.  
I'm not rich – or stupid – enough to just waste that much money on impatience.  
Its not like H is waiting for me or even knows I'm coming, so he won't care if I show up today, tomorrow or three months from now.  
"when is your flight?" my mother asks.  
I turn around so fast my neck hurts.  
I never heard her come into the room.  
"Wednesday," I say.  
No reason not to tell her.  
"good, then I know when to plan my flight. How very kind of you to let me do that all by myself instead of just adding me to your flight-plan," she says annoyedly.

I just stare at her for a few seconds before my brains kicks into gear again, too shocked to respond immediately.  
"oh, there is no reason for you to plan a flight of your own, seeing as you're not going," I say when she has already sat down and booted up her computer.  
"this is my trip, my quest to go find the father of the bastard-child you wish had never been born. There is no place for you there."  
"this is a family-trip. If you're taking my son, you're taking me," she says, typing away on her keyboard.  
"funny how it's always 'your son' when you want something, but it's 'my son' when he does something you don't like or when he needs something," I say.  
She glares at me, but doesn't respond.  
Eventually she sits back and points at her computer-screen.  
"you need to fill in your creditcard-number," she says.  
Once again my brain shuts down in shock for a few seconds.  
When it starts back up I can't stop laughing.  
It takes at least three full minutes before I calmed down enough to speak full sentences without falling back into hysteria.  
"wow. Thank you for that. It's been a while since I laughed that much. But let's get serious. One, I don't have the money. It was hard enough gathering enough for me and the little ones. And two, did you really think I was going to pay so you can come with us when I don't want you there? This time I'm sure of it, this time you really have lost your damn mind. Your brain must've been turned to mush if you at any time actually thought this was going to happen," I say, waving at her computer-screen.  
"you want to go to Greece? Fine. Go to Greece. But you're paying for your own damn flight and don't think for even one second I'm going to allow you to stay in our hotel room. So you'll have to pay for your own room as well. I won't pay for your transportation there – be it by taxi, bus, train, boat or rental car – and if we go to places that require I pay an entry fee, I'll be paying for one adult, two children. If you go to Greece, we'll just be two separate 'families' who just happen to vacation in the same country at the same time, that is all."  
She glares at me, her face red with anger, and opens her mouth, but I shake my head and shut my laptop, getting up to walk away.  
"this conversation is over," I say, leaving the room and going upstairs to pack for myself and Liz.

Who knew the prospect of a vacation could make children so annoying.  
Alex has been so exited these last two days that he's been bouncing off the walls the entire time, packing, unpacking and re-packing a million times, just to make sure he has everything he needs – and throwing out important things like his underwear in favor of fitting all his toys in his suitcase, so I had to unpack and repack his bags myself every time – and slowing me down every time we went somewhere together by starting up conversations with every single person we passed to tell them about the trip.  
Liz is too young to understand what's going on – thank the gods for that, I could never handle two kids that hyperactive – but she responds to Alex' excitement by fussing and crying out for attention every other second.  
I've never been more glad in my life when we've finally landed in Greece and the excitement dies down a little.  
Don't get me wrong, I love seeing Alex that happy, but it's just so damn exhausting.  
Raising 2 young'uns by myself is hard enough as it is without them suddenly needing twice the attention.  
"okay, kid, remember: we visit the bars and shops H frequented a year ago first, before we do anything else. The real 'vacation' won't start until day two or three, so be patient, alright?" I ask.  
Alex nods so hard I'm almost worried he might get a whiplash.  
"yeah, I remember. Non-stepdaddy first, sightseeing later," he says, loading his suitcase onto the trolley.  
"but in return you have to let me have a beer at one of the bars," he says, nodding as if it has already been decided.  
I laugh, but my mother – who came with us after all, paying for her own trip since she had no other choice – gets angry.  
"Alex! You are too young to drink. Actually, you should never drink, but if you have to, at least do it when you're old enough," she says.  
Alex looks at her in utter confusion before turning to me for an explanation.  
I laugh again.  
"mother, he means root beer," I say.  
"he's only 7 years old. Even if I wanted him to drink, do you really think any self-respecting bartender would sell alcohol to a seven year-old? But, Alex, I'm not sure they even sell root beer in Greece. I'm pretty sure that's an all-American drink."

"two fireshots and a coke," I say, putting the money on the bar and looking around.  
So yeah, I shouldn't be doing shots at 2 in the afternoon, but I need to numb myself down a bit right now.  
This is the seventh bar we've visited and the seventh time I've been told they either have no idea who H is or that he hasn't visited in over two years – which is a flat-out lie, considering I myself visited every single one of those bars with him just one year ago – and I'm starting to lose my faith.  
I pick up the drinks and walk over to the table where my mother and Alex are sitting.  
"how very nice of you to get me something as well," my mother says sarcastically.  
"just because you happen to be in the same country and the same bar as me and you sat down at my table uninvited, that doesn't mean I have to get you a drink," I say and I shrug, putting the coke down in front of Alex and downing one of the shots before I'm even fully seated.  
"drinking when the sun is still high, how unsightly," my mother says, turning her nose up at me.  
I shrug again, downing the second shot and sitting back.  
"nobody's forcing you to look," I just say.  
"we'll find him," Alex says faithfully. "we still have two more bars, six stores and two discotheques to visit. There's just no way he doesn't still visit at least one of those places."  
"yeah, unless he moved," I say, a theory I came up with after the third bar.  
If he moved out of this town, obviously he would no longer visit the same places he frequented before.  
He would have new bars, discos and shops to visit in his new hometown.  
Alex looks at me with big eyes.  
"is that a possibility?" he asks with a small voice.  
I sigh and shake my head.  
"yes, it is, but we're going to find him, dammit. If we have to travel to the ends of the earth, we will find him!" I say.  
Alex laughs and nods.  
"that's the spirit," he says happily.  
"so this man, this 'H', he frequents bars and discos – any place he might find alcohol and drugs – and impregnates women he barely knows, and you wish to find him why?" my mother asks.  
"one: he doesn't do drugs and he isn't an alcoholic, he likes bars and discos because they're the best place to get to know a lot of new people. He's just social. Two: the reason we're trying to find him is exactly because he's impregnated me. I want him to know he has a daughter. And three: please keep your judgmental bullshit to yourself. Judge me and I'll just shrug it off, but don't speak a bad word about my children or about H," I say.  
"why are you defending him? This is a man who slept with you when he had no intention of marrying you, leaving you with his bastard-child and then running off. Besides, you haven't even spoken to him in over a year, you'd think that after having all this time to think about it you'd have realized he never loved you in the slightest, he only pretended to so you'd sleep with him," she says.  
I smile and shrug.  
"I don't know whether or not he was ever in love with me, but that doesn't change the fact that I spent some of the best days of my life with him, so I won't allow anyone to badmouth him. And as you are well-aware Elizabeth was conceived right here, in Greece. I'm the one who 'ran off' when I went back to America," I say.  
"now, I've seen more than enough bars for one day, so let's continue with the shops until the discos open."

"yeah, I know him. At least, if you're talking about who I think you're talking about. Haven't seen him come in here for a while now, but I saw him in this new club in town, 'Goddess Central', just a few weeks ago. Does that help?" a salesman asks me in the fourth store we visit.  
I grab his face and kiss him on the mouth, pissing off my mother with my 'promiscuity', and Alex starts dancing around the store.  
The man laughs.  
"I guess it does help, huh?" he asks and I nod.  
"thank you, really. I swear, if I had to listen to one more person telling me they've never heard of the person who came into their shop every single day over a period of at least seven years I was going to kill someone," I say.  
"well, then I'm even more glad I could help, seeing as I'd be the closest person to you at that time," he says and I laugh.  
"don't worry, I didn't mean actually 'murder' someone, just kill them a tiny little bit," I say, holding up my hand, my fingers only half an inch apart.  
He looks confused for a second and then just shrugs it off, shaking his head at my craziness.  
"goddess central, huh?" Alex asks as we walk out of the store and hail a cab to get us back to our hotel.  
My mother isn't getting in with us, as I still refuse to pay for her transportation, even if it wouldn't actually cost me anything extra.  
"that one wasn't on the list." I shake my head and shrug.  
"no, but the salesman did say it was a 'new' club, so it probably just didn't exist back when I knew H," I say.  
"either way, now we know two things. One, he still lives in this town, or at least he still visits it from time to time, which is great. And two, he's been seen in this new club not too long ago, so the bartenders or the bouncers might still remember him. It's a stretch, considering how many new faces those people see every single day, but if the club isn't too big it's still a possibility."  
Alex nods happily.  
"we'll find him for sure," he says.

"why are you looking for him?" both the bartenders ask at the same time, but with different emotions behind the question.  
One of them looks annoyed and distrusting, the other looks curious, amused and a bit confused.  
"I knew him a while ago, but when I left the country we lost contact. We were pretty close back then, so now that I'm in town once more I figured I'd get back in touch with him," I say.  
I purposely leave out the part about how close we really were and that I gave birth to his child.  
Mostly because it's just none of their business, but also because they might not tell me what they know if they think I'm on a quest to find the father of a child I conceived during a one-night-stand so I can ask him for money or something.  
"well, I can give him your number and tell him you want him to call," the curious bartender says with a slight smile.  
The other one still looks annoyed.  
"that would be great. Oh, but since I'm pretty sure at least one of you knows how to contact him, if you don't see him here again within the next week, could you just give him a call? I'm going back home next Friday and I don't want to miss him," I say, writing down my number and handing it to the curious bartender, even though it's the annoyed bartender who holds his hand out for it.  
The curious bartender looks even more curious now, but one look at the other guy's face tells him all he needs to know and he smiles, obviously amused by the other guy's anger.  
If I'd given my number to the annoyed one, I have a suspicion it's going to mysteriously disappear into the nearest trashcan as soon as I walk out the door.  
"and who may I say was looking for him?" the curious one asks.  
"I never said?" I ask and he shakes his head.  
"huh. You'd think I'd introduce myself before asking questions like that. Anyway, I'm Leila. I knew H a little over a year ago. I don't know if he even remembers me, but whatever," I say.  
"why wouldn't he remember you, if you were as close as you say you were?" the annoyed one asks and I laugh.  
"honey, you think I remember the names of every single one of my ex-...friends?"  
I purposely pause as if having to stop myself from saying 'ex-girlfriends' just to annoy the guy a bit more.  
And judging by how red his face is getting, it worked.  
"well, see ya," I say cheerfully, walking back out.  
I have to get back to the hotel as quickly as possible.  
The nanny I hired charged me an arm and a leg for looking after my kids for just one hour.  
I can't really complain, since I called her at 4 PM and she had to start 'work' at 9 PM the same day, when normally nannies require you let them know well beforehand – at least one day before the day you need them – when you'll be expecting them, but still, I'll lose my other arm and leg as well if I'm not back within the next fifteen minutes, because she'll charge an entire hour extra if I'm even five minutes late.  
And I just don't have that kind of money.  
This vacation is expensive enough as it is, without unfortunate accidents like that.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: If you haven't yet read my Wishes story, you probably don't know this, but I have a tendency to be far too detailed in my word-building. So if you were hoping to get right to the main plot, I'm sorry. I promise we're getting there. Probably the next chapter or the one after that, which I will upload as soon as it's finished, could be tomorrow, could be next week.**

**Disclaimer: ... yeah. Still own nothing, surprise, surprise.**

3.

I rub my eyes, wondering if what I'm seeing is really real or if I'm still sleeping and this is all just a wonderful dream.  
I was on my way to the dining hall for breakfast, the kids still in bed, they wouldn't dream of waking up this early on a vacation, and there he was.  
Standing there, leaning against the wall with that wide grin on his face and that mischievous twinkle in his eyes, as if the last year never happened and I'm still living those glorious days when I could call him mine.  
"I thought you hated this hotel, so how come you're staying here again?" he asks, chuckling when I don't answer and just stare at him, still trying to figure out if he's really here.  
He walks over to me and stops just within touching distance, towering over me the same way he did back then.  
He knew how much I loved his size – what can I say? I like big boys – so he always made sure to stand really close to me so he seemed even taller.  
"ah...uhm..." I stumble, shaking my head in an attempt to clear it, but to no avail.  
He takes another step so that he's almost touching me and smiles down at me, not doing anything else, still waiting for the answer to a question I've already forgotten by now.  
I rack my brain trying to figure out exactly what I'm supposed to be saying or doing right now, but he's not exactly helping me in my endeavor.  
He runs his fingers over my face and smiles that sweet half-smile I've missed seeing so much, sending shivers down my spine.  
"it's cheap," I say eventually, taking a step back.  
Being so close to him is dangerous.  
It's just too easy to fall right back in love with him – when I've finally managed to fool myself into thinking it was over – and I need a clear head for this.  
He frowns, but doesn't say anything about it.  
"I heard you were looking for me," he says, looking a bit confused.  
I don't blame him.  
When someone you've dated – however shortly – comes looking for you after being separated for a whole year it's easy to assume they want to rekindle the old flame.  
Not that I don't want that, but I need to tell him about Liz before I even think about anything like that.  
It's just too easy to completely lose myself in him and forget I came here on a mission, not just to have fun.  
I shake my head again and take another step back, making him frown again.  
"right. I was. Um, we need to talk," I say, cracking my knuckles nervously.  
This is exactly what I wanted, right? I found him and now I can tell him about Liz.  
So why do I suddenly feel like throwing up?  
"lead the way," he says formally, gesturing to the door of the dining hall, probably realizing whatever it is I want to tell him isn't something trivial like me wanting to get back together with him.

"so, I'm guessing you still remember me," I say, laughing nervously.  
Of course he still remembers me, he even remembers what hotel I was staying in and how much I hated the place.  
"I...uhm..." I rub my hands over my face and look at him worriedly.  
"just say whatever it is you need to say. I promise I won't get angry," he says and I laugh.  
"oh, anger isn't what I was expecting. Panic or disbelief on the other hand..." I say.  
Then I shake my head once more and, in a moment of bravery – or recklessness, whatever you want to call it – I just tell him everything.  
About how, when I came back from my vacation, I got sick and I initially thought I'd brought home a virus or something.  
About how I went to the doctor and found out that I'd brought something back alright, but it couldn't exactly be called a virus.  
About how I'd been meaning to tell him, but I had no way of contacting him and about how I came to find him after I'd finally gathered enough money for this trip.  
The entire time he just looks at me, his face an expressionless mask.  
I can remember him being such an open book.  
When he was happy, he looked happy.  
When he was angry, he looked angry.  
I'm not sure what to make of his sudden expressionlessness.  
When I finish talking I fold my hands in my lap and just stare at the table, too scared to look at him.  
"you named her Elizabeth, huh?" he asks after a few moments of tense silence.  
"yeah, I had to name her eventually, and since I obviously couldn't ask for your opinion on the matter,..." I say, shrugging and still staring at the table.  
Suddenly he chuckles.  
"Leila, look at me," he says.  
I flinch and look up warily, only to find him smiling cheerfully.  
"I told you I wouldn't get angry, didn't I?" he asks. "if anything, I'm thankful."  
"thankful?" I ask, a bit confused and he chuckles again.  
"you spent all this money to come here, when you don't have all that much to spend, just so you could tell me about this. And since you stopped talking after telling me about her existence, I'm guessing you didn't come here expecting me to take care of her or pay for her, you simply wanted me to know and let me decide for myself what I wanted to do with this new information. I'm sure that, if I told you now that I want nothing to do with the kid, you'd just take her and leave, never coming back," he says.  
"so yes, I am thankful."

"you want nothing to do with her?" I ask, my heart shattering at the thought.  
He starts to say something, but I interrupt him by standing up, slamming my hands down on the tabletop and leaning closer to him.  
"but you haven't even met her yet! You have to meet her, at least. She's so amazing. She's really beautiful and she laughs all the time and she almost never keeps me up at night and..." I stop talking when he laughs and puts his hand over my mouth.  
"Leila, darling, I never said I wanted nothing to do with her. That was a hypothetical worst-case scenario," he says.  
I sit back down and smile sheepishly.  
"oh, right. Sorry, I'm a bit high-strung right now," I say and he smiles.  
"I'll say," he says. "but I don't blame you. This must be very stressful for you."  
"you know, it's actually not that bad. Up until I saw you just now I just had this idea in my head that I was just going to tell you and be done with it. Of course, when the time came for me to put my money where my mouth is I freaked out, but now I'm okay again," I say, shaking my head and laughing when he raises an eyebrow in disbelief. "well, I'm better."  
"so what comes next?" he asks.  
I shrug.  
"well, we could hang out and talk about 'the good old days' while we wait for the little ones to wake up, or I could go wake them up right now – though Alex would definitely be in a terrible mood all day if I did that – and then you can meet them," I say.  
"and after that we need to figure out how we're going to make this work, if you want to see us sometimes, because I seriously can't afford to book a flight for every single birthday or holiday, even if I did have the time for that, which I don't, since I have my job to take into consideration."  
"wait, stop, rewind. Did you just say them, as in 'multiple children'? I thought you said it was just Elizabeth? Who is this Alex? Is he also mine? Are they twins?" he asks, sounding oddly hopeful at that, and I laugh.  
"Alex is my son, somewhat, but he is most definitely not yours, unless you had an affair with my mother eight years ago," I say.

"so is he your son or your brother?" he asks and I sigh.  
"both and neither," I say.  
"I raised him, I'm still raising him, but my mother is his biological mother. And Alex knows this, but he still calls his mother his grandmother and me his mother. Remember back when we first met? You asked me about my family and I told you that me telling you about my screwed-up family would effectively ruin both our nights? Well, it's still as screwed-up as ever."  
"gossip and slander are tools of the devil," an annoyingly familiar voice says from somewhere behind me.  
I sigh deeply and H looks at me questioningly.  
"well, I guess now is as good a time as ever to 'meet the family'," I say, gesturing to my mother.  
"meet the wicked witch of the west, also known as my mother."  
My mother glares at me, but – because there are other people around and she doesn't want to make herself look bad – refrains from yelling at me and ranting the way she usually would whenever I say something insulting about her.  
"you must be Herbert," she says, shaking H's hand and I smile when he looks at me in confusion.  
"she's pretending not to know your name. I guess she's trying to convey her feelings that you are too insignificant for her to spend any effort into remembering even something as simple as a single letter," I explain and he grins, looking very amused by the idea that anyone would consider him insignificant.  
"well, I don't particularly mind. I've been known by many names over the course of my life, Herbert actually being one of them. If you choose to call me that, then that's fine by me," he tells my mother and I can hear her gritting her teeth in annoyance, but there are still other people around, so she just smiles at him as politely as she can manage with her jaws clenched tightly.

My mother sits down at our table uninvited and looks at H like a cow-breeder would look at a sick calf.  
Something pitifully inferior that needs to be disposed of quickly, before its illness can spread to the healthy cattle.  
H doesn't seem to mind.  
In fact, he seems to be greatly amused by her contempt.  
"you know, I would think you'd show a little more respect to the father of your granddaughter," I say when she doesn't let up and just keeps sneering at him over the rim of her teacup.  
H still doesn't mind, though.  
He's exactly as I remember him: easygoing and confident, not someone to be at all bothered by something as little as this.  
"that bastard is no granddaughter of mine," my mother says, turning up her nose at me.  
H's smile falls and he closes his eyes, breathing deeply in an attempt to calm his anger before he does something wonderfully stupid like slap her silly.  
She herself doesn't seem to notice the thin, black ice she's walking on, though, and she continues on like nothing is wrong.  
"I refuse to see that unclean thing as something born from my own flesh and blood," she says, building up to a rant despite all the people around us.  
"Leila," H says, his voice sounding strained with barely contained rage.  
"you and your children may come stay at my house for as long as you wish. This woman, however, is not welcome."  
Of course that starts my mother off on a rant about how Alex is her child – seeing as she can use him to get something she wants – and he's not going anywhere without her.  
I can almost hear the proverbial ice beneath her feet slowly starting to crack.  
"ma'am, I suggest you stop talking before I do something we'll both regret," H says, turning his hands to fists to keep from reaching out and slamming her head against the table or something.  
When my mother goes on to rant about how H is a tool of the devil and how he has seduces her 'oh so innocent little girl' into a life of sin, I realize I have to come up with something to diffuse the situation quickly or someone might die.

Luckily I know H pretty well and I know that a few jokes can go a long way for calming him down when he's stressed out or angry about something.  
"you know, mother, if you keep this up, he might actually kill you. And when that happens, I'd sure want to go to your funeral, but it'd probably be on a workday and I believe in business before pleasure," I say, the first funny thing I could come up with.  
H looks confused for a second, blinks a few times and then falls into fits of laughter.  
"oh, I have to remember that one," he says cheerfully.  
My mother glares at me and opens her mouth, but I hold up my hand, shutting her up.  
"if you hadn't noticed: this conversation is over. Now, why don't you go upstairs, get out of those dreadful pajama's and slip into something a bit more comfortable...like a coma," I say.  
H, who had finally stopped laughing, falls right back into hysteria.  
He grabs a notepad from his bag and starts writing something down, probably my insults, shaking his head and mumbling something that sounds like 'genius'.  
My mother gets up, her face red with rage, but since I said my 'magic words' she knows her allotted ranting-time is over, so there's no point in her staying any longer.  
"well, that was interesting," I say when my mother has stormed out of the room and H has calmed down a bit.  
"more," he says, making a beckoning gesture with his hands.  
I laugh and shake my head.  
"alright...how's this? 'Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I hate you, but if you were on fire and I had water...I'd drink it'," I say and he doubles over in laughter, taking a few seconds to calm down enough to respond, but right when he's about to speak I hear another familiar voice, this one not half as annoying as the last one.  
"mommy?" I turn around and hold out my arms before even looking at him.  
If Alex is here, Elizabeth is here.  
He'd never leave her alone with my mother and I have no doubt that woman went straight to our room when she stormed out of here, which is probably the reason these two are out of bed so early in the day, trying to escape my mother's ranting.

"so that's them, then?" H asks, smiling at Alex – who shyly hides behind my chair – and Elizabeth, who laughs and babbles for a bit and goes back to sleep.  
"yup, this is them," I say.  
"this little brat is Alex. Don't let his innocent appearance fool you, he's a tiny devil in disguise. And this little angel here is Elizabeth, my...our daughter."  
"may I?" he asks, holding out his arms at Liz, a look of wonder in his eyes.  
"of course," I say, nodding and carefully laying Liz down in his arms.  
She wakes up again and stares up at him with those big blue eyes of hers and I can see his heart melting for her in that moment.  
"she will break many a man's hearts when she gets older," he says.  
"don't look at her like that! You can't have her. She's going to marry me when we're all grown up," Alex says, glaring at H from behind my chair.  
This is one of the few things in which he is predominantly childlike – this desire to marry a family members that so many children his age seem to have – so I never bothered to tell him that him marrying Liz would actually be illegal.  
H just smiles and shrugs.  
"you have a great taste in women," he says.  
"don't encourage him," I mumble and he laughs.  
Just because I decided not to kill Alex' dream, that doesn't mean I encourage it.  
"so, are you going to be our daddy?" Alex asks as he tries to pry Liz out of H's arms, his earlier shyness completely forgotten.  
H looks at me with that look in his eyes that never fails to annoy me.  
He looks panicky, which is to be expected, considering the question, but I can tell he's not actually worried, he's just pretending to be, because he thinks that is what is expected of him.  
Annoying, yes, but not nearly as bad as I'd feared his reaction would be, so it's fine.  
"for now he's just going to be your non-stepdaddy," I say, and Alex nods.  
"good enough for me," he says.  
H just looks confused now and I laugh.  
"long story," I say, shaking my head.

"you found him," the curious bartender says happily when I walk up to the bar, H right behind me.  
"well, actually, he found me," I say, laughing.  
The angry bartender looks at me, looks at H, and then storms off into a back room.  
Huh, wonder what that was about. "thanks for your help. So, you serve fireshots?" I ask the curious bartender, deciding to just ignore the angry man's craziness.  
"woman, I serve everything," the curious one says proudly, walking over to the other side of the bar and picking up one of the ridiculously many bottles there.  
"I'm Dio, by the way. I just remembered I never introduced myself," he says as he's pouring my drink.  
H stays silent and just watches me with a dreamy look in his eyes.  
He's probably thinking about Elizabeth again.  
After our talk in the dining hall of the hotel, H once again invited me and the kids to come stay with him in his house – or rather, his mansion.  
Seriously, that place is huge – and this time, without my mother there to interfere, I accepted his invitation.  
My mother really couldn't do anything about that, since I'd told her from the start that I didn't accept her as a family member on this trip and that we just happened to be in the same country at the same time, so I wouldn't take her into consideration for anything I did, or anywhere I went.  
So I went to pack all our stuff and the kids and I got into H's car and drove off into the sunset.  
Well, actually, it was only mid-morning, so it was more like 'into the sunrise', but whatever.  
Turns out, H lives in this huge mansion and he has a dozen servants working for him, including a maid who was a nanny before she started working for H.  
She agreed to take care of the little ones as H and I went out and got reacquainted.  
But that was only half an hour ago.  
Before then H flat-out refused to let Elizabeth leave his sight for even one second.  
He held her for hours on end and smiled, a look of utter bliss in his eyes, every time she started babbling and laughing, which was every ten minutes or so.  
Even in all the time we'd spent together a year ago, I've never seen H as happy as he was today. It really makes me feel like I did the right thing coming here to find him.

"you don't deserve him," the angry bartender says, suddenly standing right in front of me, on the other side of the bar.  
"wow, where did you come from?" I ask, surprised.  
I was pretty deep in thought just now, but I don't think I was distracted enough to not notice someone coming to stand right in front of me.  
"you don't deserve him," he just says again.  
I sigh and shrug.  
"that may very well be so, but that doesn't change the fact that I have him," I say, looking around.  
Where did H and Dio go?  
They were here just a second ago.  
"you're poor, you're not that pretty and you have few manners. You don't deserve him," the angry guy just says again and I sigh again.  
"you're starting to sound like a broken record. Look, if he doesn't want you, it's because he is not into you, not because 'I stole him from you' or whatever stupid thing you've come up with to justify the fact that he doesn't want your oh-so-awesome self. So just lay off, will ya?" I say, though I suspect this guy doesn't know the meaning of 'laying off'.  
"I don't want him," the guy says, but I'm calling bullshit by the way his face just turned lobster-red.  
"u-huh," I just say sarcastically, looking around for H and Dio again.  
This angry guy isn't serving anyone and there seem to be a lot of people trying to get his attention.  
I thought Dio was the reliable bartender – as far as bartenders can be considered 'reliable' – so why would he leave the bar, knowing that he's leaving it in the hands of a man who doesn't give a flying fuck about customer satisfaction?  
"if you think..." the man starts to say in a tone of voice that reminds me eerily of my mother, but he is interrupted by a stranger, who is suddenly standing right beside me, asking where Dio is.  
"seriously, what is up with people popping in and out of existence today?" I ask no-one in particular, making the stranger laugh.  
"if you mean me, then as much as I'd hate to disappoint, I didn't actually 'pop into existence' just now, I came from over there," he says, pointing behind him at a table where three young women seem to be impatiently awaiting his return.

"charming," I say sarcastically when one of the women lifts her skirt up high enough that her panties show.  
"yeah, I might have to replace that one," the stranger says, sounding amused.  
He stays silent for a while, but I don't say anything, suspecting what he's going to say next.  
"interested in taking her place?" he asks, the question I had been waiting for.  
"I might've been interested if you had decided to trade all three of them for me, but I'll try not to be insulted that I'm apparently only as valuable as one of them, and the least attractive one at that," I say, making the stranger laugh again.  
Well, at least he's cheerful.  
Well, that or drunk.  
My money is on drunk.  
"I'm Paolo," he says.  
The angry bartender is silent, glaring at me, but not saying anything.  
The look in his eyes when he looks at Paolo tells me he's the reason for the angry man's silence, though I don't know why. He seems like just another drunk playboy to me.  
"I'm Leila, proud mother of two, so don't even try to treat me the same as you would those bimbos," I say, making Paolo laugh again.  
"now, now, calling these lovely ladies 'bimbos' is a bit harsh, don't you think?" he asks.  
I look back at the table again and see that the vulgar girl has taken off her skirt altogether and the other two seem to be getting very cozy with one another.  
I say nothing, I just look back at Paolo and raise a disbelieving eyebrow and he chuckles.  
"well, maybe 'ladies' isn't the right word," he admits.  
I just nod and look around for Dio and H again.  
Seriously, where did those two go, leaving me alone like this?  
H wasn't like this when we went out a year ago.  
Guess people really do change.  
Or maybe, since he no longer has to seduce me into his bed, he just doesn't put in all the effort he did back then.  
Well, that's a bit rude.

"so...how would you like to become the proud mother of three?" Paolo asks, making me choke and cough.  
"ugh, that's...no," I say, shaking my head.  
"just...no." Paolo chuckles again and shrugs.  
"it would be a gorgeous kid, I can promise you that," he says, pointing at his own face.  
Even I have to admit that he is, in fact, gorgeous.  
Actually, I can't remember ever having met anyone as pretty as he is.  
Well, maybe H.  
Or Dio.  
Those two are both pretty handsome.  
Guess there's just something about Greek men that gets my blood boiling.  
"well, I did read somewhere that a baby from two ugly parents has a good chance of being gorgeous...oh, wait...damn, I'm not ugly. Guess that won't work then, huh?" I say, making him double over in laughter.  
What? Just because I think he's hot, that doesn't mean I'm going to admit it to him.  
"you are interesting," he says, leaning closer to me.  
The angry bartender apparently decides that since, for whatever reason, he can't keep yelling at me, he might as well start doing his job and starts tending the bar, leaving me alone with this dangerous predator.  
At least with him there I felt like I had someone to run interference if Paolo got too familiar with me.  
Sure, I know rationally that he wouldn't have done a damn thing to help me, but delusion is a girl's best friend, right?  
But now he's gone, Dio's gone and H is gone, so no-one is going to help me get rid of this playboy.  
I sigh deeply, making Paolo look at me questioningly.  
"I came here with someone, but for whatever reason he popped out of existence, along with the other bartender, right when you and that angry dude popped in," I admit.  
"I'm feeling a bit abandoned, I guess."  
Paolo grins mischievously and I sigh again.  
Great, I just admitted to feeling vulnerable, he'll never leave me alone now.  
"well then, how about I send those bimbos packing and you come have one drink with me. Just one," he begs and I laugh.  
"I thought calling them 'bimbos' was 'a bit harsh'," I just say, not remarking on the other part of the sentence.  
He chuckles and points at the table.  
"oh, yeah. Definitely bimbos," I say, watching as the vulgar one is sitting on some old guy's lap, her shirt apparently forgotten as her skirt was and the other two are doing things to each other that my mother would be too young to see.  
"ugh, that's nasty."


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Yeah, they're just sitting around talking in this chapter and probably for most of the next one as well. Did I mention I go overboard with the world-building? If you hate slow-burn stories like this, might want to just give up now, because I have a feeling this is going to be a recurring thing in this particular story. I don't know why. My stories don't always go in the directions I want them to, and my muse being the stubborn brat that she is, it's hard for me to get back on track when the story goes off the rails like this.**

**Disclaimer: Same as always, I don't own anything in the story, I don't think there's even anything ownable, but I'm too paranoid to leave the disclaimer out.**

4.

"how did this happen, again?" I ask, gathering my clothes and looking around the small room.  
Paolo laughs and shrugs, not bothering to get up. "you want the short version or the long version?" he asks and he just laughs again when I glare at him.  
H didn't show up even after waiting for him for two whole hours – two hours spent with Paolo, since he seemed to be obsessed with me for some reason – so when Paolo invited me to come sit with him again, this time I accepted the invitation.  
I told him I was doing it only because I was feeling lonely, but quietly hoping H would come back as I was sitting at Paolo's table and would feel jealous over it.  
That didn't happen.  
What did happen was I spent another two hours playing weird drinking games with Paolo and eventually, when he asked me to come into one of the back rooms with him, I stupidly – drunkenly – accepted that invitation as well.  
I put all my clothes on a neat pile and look over to where Paolo is lying half-asleep on the floor.  
There's no bed or anything in this room.  
From the looks of it it's just a boiler-room that Paolo apparently turned into his personal little love-nest.  
There's a blanket and some pillows on the floor and a bag in the corner of the room.  
"ugh, we didn't even use any protection," I complain and Paolo chuckles.  
"if you're lucky, you now have that gorgeous third baby on the way," he says sleepily, not a care in the world.  
"one can only hope," I mumble sarcastically and then I sigh.  
"well, whatever, might as well make this bad choice worth my while," I say, more to myself than to him, but he still looks at me questioningly.  
I smile and stretch. "up for round two?" I ask, looking down at him again, making him laugh happily.  
"always," he says, pulling me down onto the blanket.  
"sure you're not too sleepy? You seemed to be half-asleep just now," I say, though he seems plenty energetic now.  
"I'm never too sleepy to please a beautiful lady," he says.  
I open my mouth to respond, but he brings his lips down unto mine, effectively shutting me up.

"damn, I'm sleepy," I mumble, pushing Paolo off me unceremoniously after round four – or was it five? – and he laughs, but it sounds weak, as if he's as tired as I am.  
"I must say, I've been with a lot of women, but you are definitely one of the most tiring one-night-stands I've ever had," he says.  
"that could be taken as both a compliment and as an insult," I say.  
"oh, it's a compliment, believe me.  
And I just realized something," he says.  
I look at him questioningly and he chuckles.  
"you...are a MILF. An unusually young one, but still..." he says and I laugh.  
"yes, I am. Not sure if I'm happy about that, but yes, I am," I say, making him laugh as well.  
His laughter is cut off suddenly and I look at him worriedly, but he seems to have just fallen asleep.  
Well, whatever. Guess it wouldn't hurt for me to take a nap myself.  
I put on my underwear and my jeans – so I won't be found naked if anyone happens to stumble into this room while I'm sleeping – and lay my head down on Paolo's chest.  
I'm sure he wouldn't mind.  
I don't fall asleep right away, but I just rest, listening to Paolo's soft heartbeat and the grinding noises of the boilers around us.  
I'm not sure what to make of this, what happened just now.  
It's pretty obvious Paolo is not looking for any serious commitment, he did just call me a 'one-night-stand'.  
I've never had one of those before.  
And what do I do about H?  
I mean, he left me alone all night, which is pretty rude, but he is the father of my child and I still care about him, even if I am a bit peeved right now. Am I supposed to have a 'serious commitment' with him?  
And if so, where does this little adventure with Paolo fit into that?  
Does this count as 'cheating on H'?  
You know, while I don't agree with everything – or almost anything – that my mother's church preaches, I have to say I don't completely disagree with some of it either.  
Take 'no sex before marriage' for example.  
Things would be so much easier for me if I had just waited until I was married before I started having sex.  
"you're thinking too much," Paolo mumbles, wrapping his arm around me and pulling me tighter to his body.  
"just sleep." I sigh, perfectly content to just be in his arms for now and forget the world around me even exists, and let myself doze off.

"ah, fuck. It's light out," I say, looking at the little window and seeing the sun high up in the sky.  
"sun came up while we slept. That is what usually happens when you go to sleep at night, you know?" Paolo says sleepily, sitting up and gathering his clothes.  
"yeah, but is this place even open at daytime? We might be locked in. And I left my kids with the nanny all night. Alex is going to be so pissed," I say worriedly, putting on my T-shirt, silently thanking the gods that no-one seems to have walked in on us when I was sleeping.  
Even if I wasn't naked, Paolo was, and I was half-naked, which is almost as bad.  
Anyone who'd have seen us would have known exactly what happened here.  
"Alex is your husband?" Paolo asks and I laugh, making him frown in confusion, too sleepy to understand what's so funny.  
"I find it hilarious that you took me here apparently thinking I was married. No, Alex is not my husband, he's my son. He's seven. My daughter, Elizabeth, is almost five months old," I explain proudly.  
"seven? You don't seem old enough to have a seven year old son," he says and I shrug.  
"he was adopted, somewhat. Doesn't matter. What does matter is that I left him in an unfamiliar environment, with a stranger, all night. What kind of mother does that?" I ask no-one in particular.  
"hopefully a satisfied one," Paolo says, making me laugh again.  
"there is that," I just say, getting up and stretching my aching muscles.  
Sleeping on the floor is great, but it doesn't make for a lovely morning-after.  
"well, you don't have to worry about this place being closed, I co-own it – Dio, the other owner, is my brother – so I have the keys to all the doors," he says, rummaging through his bag and pulling out a set of keys.  
"well, that explains why you have your own 'room' here," I say.  
"and as for your kids, you're how old? Twenty, twenty-five? You deserve to have some fun. You're too young to let your entire live turn into some boring game of 'keep the little ones happy'," he says, getting up and leading me out of the room, into an empty club.  
"man, this place looks like a haunted house during the day," I say, making Paolo laugh.  
"a lot of places look haunted at night, but the_ best_ places are the ones that look scary in the sunlight," he says wisely.

"so, where to, my lady?" Paolo asks, fastening his seatbelt.  
It takes me a while to answer – I'm too busy admiring his car, it's awesome.  
I'd steal it from him if I thought I'd get away with it – but when I do he just stares at me in shock for some reason.  
He repeats the address disbelievingly and I nod, a bit confused.  
"that's Hermes' place," he says.  
"yeah, so? You know him?" I ask.  
"you're H's girl?" he asks, not bothering to answer my half-rhetorical question.  
I shrug. "I wouldn't say I'm 'his girl' persé," I say.  
"he's Liz' father, so I'm staying with him while I'm in town, but we haven't really been 'together' since she was conceived, which was over a year ago. I guess if you want to put a name to it, I'm his ex-girl."  
"I just spend the night with H's girl," Paolo says to no-one in particular, completely ignoring everything I just said.  
"the mother of his child even. I am so screwed." I laugh.  
"so wait, you couldn't care less if I was married, but the fact that I spend a little over one week with H over a year ago gets you in a tizzy? Seriously, whatever you've got going on with him, I doubt he's going to kill you for sleeping with his ex-girlfriend, especially since you didn't know I was his ex," I say.  
"he's my brother," Paolo just says as he starts the car. "and he recently picked up a tendency to hold grudges over stuff like this."  
I sink back into the soft cushions of the passenger's seat and shrug.  
Then I laugh when I suddenly realize something.  
"wouldn't it be kinda awesome if I really was pregnant right now? Can't have a truly screwed up family until you have a three-way cluster-fuck like that," I say.  
He looks at me questioningly and I just laugh. "Alex is actually my little brother, but since I pretty much adopted him he's also my son. Which makes him and Liz siblings as well as 'uncle and niece'," I explain. "so if I'd have your kid, that would make our little screwed up family really complete. Liz and your kid would be siblings as well as cousins, since their fathers are brothers. And Alex would be their uncle, but also their brother."  
Paolo smiles at that.

"you think that's bad? My mother is also my aunt and my father's my uncle, how's that for fucked up?" he asks. I think about that for a second.  
"well, at least there's no real incest involved in my fucked up family," I say eventually.  
"yet," he just says ominously, making me laugh.  
"my only remaining living relatives – not counting the young'uns, because_ ew _– are my father, who is MIA, and my mother and I seriously doubt anything is going to happen there," I say. "mostly because she's ugly, annoying and, well, my mother, and also because we're both women, so no chance of any babies there."  
"ah man, I am so screwed," Paolo says as he pulls up into the driveway of H's mansion.  
"I'm sure you're fine, but if you're so worried about it, you can just leave now. I'll tell them I spent the night with 'some guy I met' and no-one would be the wiser," I suggest, but he shakes his head.  
"nah, you've made me curious about your 'siblings and cousins' family," he says, smiling widely, but he still looks worried.  
He parks the car and we get out right when the front door of the mansion opens and an impatient-looking H steps outside.  
He looks from me to Paolo and I almost laugh at the emotions I can see in his eyes.  
First impatience, then worry, then confusion, then understanding and then anger.  
"ah, guess you were right about him getting pissed at you for spending the night with his ex," I mumble when H storms up to us, glaring at Paolo the entire time, not even sparing me a glance now that he knows I'm at least safe.  
Well, that or he's still in the same mood he was in last night which made him think it was acceptable to just leave me alone without warning or explanation like he did.  
Paolo just sighs and shakes his head, having seemingly accepted his fate.  
"I'm gonna go check on the little ones. Feel free to lie about what happened or to just get in the car and bail if you want," I say when H reaches us and just keeps glaring at Paolo, standing toe to toe with him.  
I look back as I'm about to walk into the house and smile when I notice that Paolo is just slightly taller than H.  
I do love me some big boys.

"hey mom," Alex says as I walk into the guest-room H had prepared for the kids.  
He's sitting on the carpet, playing with his favorite toys, the dinosaurs.  
"hey Alex, how've you been?" I ask, hugging him, and he laughs.  
"I'm fine, mom. I won't die from being left alone for one night," he says. "and Sisa is fine too. The lady nanny was really nice, she even read us a bedtime story. How come you never read us any bedtime stories?"  
I laugh and sit down next to him.  
I sigh deeply and pretend to be troubled by something.  
"well, son...I didn't want you to find out like this, but...mommy is illiterate," I say.  
"liar," he says deadpan and I laugh.  
"no, but seriously, I used to read you bedtime stories all the time, but when you were four you suddenly decided you had 'outgrown them' and you'd throw a hissy-fit whenever I suggested reading to you, so I just quit," I say, this time completely honest.  
"yeah, that sounds like something I'd do," he says and I laugh again.  
"Did you have fun? Were you with a guy?" he asks after a long silence and I sigh again.  
"yeah. But...wanna hear something interesting?" I ask.  
He puts down his toys and looks up at me, which I interpret as a 'yes'.  
"I met this guy at the disco H took me to. H disappeared after just a few minutes, so I was left alone and this guy came up to me and started talking to me and coming on to me. After a couple hours I was drunk enough to just go with the flow, so I spent the night with him. Then, on the way back here just now...I found out that the guy I was with...? H's brother!" I say.  
Alex stares at me in disbelief and I laugh.  
"it's true. It turns out that out of all the people in the world I could've spent the night with, I ended up getting freaky with H's brother. What are the odds, huh?" Alex chuckles and looks at my stomach.  
"if you're pregnant and you have a boy, I'll have a nephew and a brother and a niece and a sister and Sisa will have a cousin and a brother and an uncle and a brother," he says, making me laugh again.  
"yeah, I also figured that. Let's hope that doesn't happen, huh? This family is screwed up enough as it is," I say.

Since Alex and Liz seem to be doing okay – Liz is sleeping and it's still early, so I decided not to wake her up – I walk out of the room and go looking for the brothers.  
"seriously?" I hear H yelling, so I just follow his voice to where they are, ending up a few doors over, at the door to H's study.  
"out of all the women you could've taken to bed, it just had to be her," he says annoyedly.  
"look, I didn't know she was your girl. It would've helped if you had actually been there, where you were supposed to be, considering you're the one who took her out in the first place, but alas, you were not. She was lonely and you know I can't resist comforting a beautiful, lonely woman," Paolo says, sounding completely unrepentant, the 'beautiful'-comment making me smile.  
"besides, as far as she's concerned, you're her ex, not her current boyfriend, so I don't see what the big deal is."  
"if you didn't know she was mine then how would you know she considers me her ex, huh?" H asks and Paolo sighs.  
"because she told me in the car, right after she told me to drop her off at your house, which is the first time I heard anything about any connection she has to you," he says.  
H sighs, it sounds strained, like he's trying to reign in his anger.  
I feel a bit bad at eavesdropping like this, but it doesn't seem like either of the brothers would appreciate me interrupting right now.  
"you know what? Fine. You had your fun, now get out," he says.  
"get out of my house and get the hell out of Leila's life. Heaven knows you rarely stay with the same woman for longer than a single night, so that should be the end of this mess."  
Paolo sighs and I can almost see him shaking his head, even though the door is closed and I can't actually see either one of them.  
"not exactly," he says and I sigh.  
He just got the perfect out, why didn't he take it?  
"well, I want to meet her kids, since I'm curious to see if they're really as gorgeous as she says they are or if a part of – and if so, how much of – that praise is just her bias as their mother, which is why I came here and faced you like this instead of just skipping out or pretending last night never happened like she offered to let me," he says.  
"Poll, you do not get to see her kids and you do not get to see her again. Your time with her is over and done with. You've slept with countless women who had children, but you never cared to see any of them, so why start now?" H asks.  
Poll? What a weird nickname is that? If you have to shorten 'Paolo', at least make it something like 'Paul'.  
Maybe I just misheard, but it definitely sounded like P-O-L-L, Poll.

"Aside from the fact that none of those other women were the mother of my niece, you mean? I like her, she's interesting. Not to mention quite attractive. And if she were anyone else, I'd just take her comments about her daughter being 'the most beautiful little angel in the world' with a whole bucket of salt, but since that kid has her genes combined with yours, I can't help but wonder," Paolo says.  
Even through the closed door I can hear the sound of H gritting his teeth.  
"yes, Leila is very attractive. She is also mine, as is the child," H says.  
I sigh deeply and decide I've heard enough.  
"correction," I say, opening the door and walking inside.  
"I am very much my own woman, not yours and not his," I say, pointing at Paolo, but looking at H.  
"just because I slept with you over a year ago and that accidentally resulted in a daughter, that doesn't mean you own me. I can decide what to do with my own life, thank you very much. So if I said I'd let him see the little ones, _my_ little ones, then you have no say over that either."  
I can see H opening his mouth to say something, but I interrupt him before he can say more than one word.  
"don't you dare start giving me crap about how Elizabeth is your daughter, because if there's one thing I can't stand it's when people who never spent a single full day with their child think they can 'out-parent' me. Elizabeth is mine and I decide who she does or does not meet," I say, taking Paolo's hand and dragging him out of the room and into the guest-room where Alex is now sitting on one of the beds, seemingly listening intently, probably eavesdropping like I was before.  
The brothers weren't exactly quiet and the study is only three doors away from this room.  
"Paolo, Alex and Elizabeth. Alex and Elizabeth – who is sleeping and can't even hear me right now, even if she could understand anything I was saying anyway, which she can't – Paolo," I introduce them.  
"call me Pollo," Paulo says, shaking Alex' hand.  
Huh, guess I'd misheard what H called him after all.

"damn, this is not going at all the way I'd planned it," I say, sighing as I sit down on the bed next to Alex.  
Paolo walks over to the other bed and kneels down beside it, staring at Elizabeth as if he can't believe she's really real.  
"no happy ending, huh?" Alex asks and I laugh.  
"well, considering H is, for whatever reason, suddenly a complete ass, even though he was so amazing a year ago, no, no happy ending for us," I say.  
Paolo sighs.  
"yeah, that's something that happened somewhere in the last three months," he says.  
I look at him questioningly and he shrugs, getting up to close the door and coming to sit down next to me.  
"Hermes used to be the best little brother in existence," Paolo says. "and the best boyfriend in existence, too."  
"ugh, incest," Alex and I say at the same time and we laugh.  
"it runs in the family," Paolo just says, perfectly serious, but Alex and I double over in laughter.  
Paolo looks confused until he thinks about what he just says and then he laughs too.  
"that's not what I meant and you know it," he says, poking me in the ribs.  
"right, right. The aunt/mother, uncle/father thing," I say, shaking my head and wiping the tears off my cheeks.  
"so anyway," Paolo says when Alex has finally calmed down a bit. "we were together all the time. Sometimes I'd have someone else or he'd have someone else or _we'_d have someone else, but in the end it always came back to it just being me and him. When he was with you, that was in December, right? I was in Scotland at the time for work. That's why you didn't meet me back then. By the time I was back from my trip, you were also back from_ your_ trip and our paths just never crossed. H and I would've probably shared you if they had," he explains.  
"ew, ew, ew," Alex says, covering his ears and jumping off the bed, but I just laugh.  
"huh, I am not entirely repulsed by that idea. How interesting," I say and Paolo smiles widely.  
"maybe, when Hermes is back to his normal self, we can still try that," he suggests cheerfully, but his mood sobers quickly.  
"but he's not his normal self right now. Sometimes he is. Every now and then his old self shines through and I can see that mischievous twinkle in his eyes or that half-smile that tells me he's thinking naughty things and everything is great again. But most of the time he's like this. Mean and self-centered and kinda infuriating. I've known him all my life, but he's never been like this before. This is something that just started out of nowhere a few months ago and it's been happening more and more frequently. It's come to a point where this is his 'normal' mood now and his old self doesn't come out to play very often anymore. Once or twice in the last month, as far as I know," he says.

"well, he was himself yesterday, pretty much all day up until he left me at the club. That twinkle in his eyes and that half-smile you were talking about, I know them well. I saw them a hundred times last year and again yesterday-morning. And after I'd told him about Liz he was so sweet and patient and he seemed so happy. It gave me a little hope that he would come up with a way for the four of us – me, him, Liz and Alex – to be able to see each other more often than 'almost never' and we could actually have some variation on that happy ending I thought was impossible before. But then, at the goddess central, he seemed fine one second, but then he and Dio 'popped out of existence', like I'd said. One second they were there, I get distracted for maybe a minute and then 'poof! bye bye H and Dio, hello Paolo and angry bartender dude'. That's the last I saw of 'the old Hermes'. It's so weird. It's like he's not even the same person, but instead he's just someone who happens to look the same. I mean, we've been here for almost twenty minutes now and he hasn't said a single word to me, which I guess could be because he's angry – although his current anger doesn't seem normal for him either – but he also hasn't come to check on Liz. I barely know him and even I know that that's not like him. Yesterday he wouldn't leave her alone for even a second, he seemed determined to make up for his absence the last 4 months by being with her non-stop from now on, and today he doesn't even check up on her, even though he's only a few doors away," I say, looking over to the other bed, where Liz is still peacefully sleeping.  
Alex has already given up on this weird, to his ears probably disgusting conversation and has gone back to playing with his toys.  
"I miss the old Hermes," Paolo says, sighing. I sigh as well.  
"yeah, you and me both. I liked him just fine yesterday and I was hopelessly in love with him a year ago – okay, I'll admit it, I was still hopelessly in love with him yesterday – but today...? I look at him and I feel nothing but anger. I mean, there should still be some love there, right? Even if it's just the shadow of the actual feeling. Even if he does piss me off with the whole 'I own you'-thing. But no. I look at him and I feel nothing but contempt and frustration. But the weird thing is, when I think about him, the feeling is there," I say, tapping my head and my heart, then I sigh again.  
"I guess I can't really explain it," I say.

Paolo looks at me strangely and then smiles kindly.  
"no, I know exactly what you mean, because I feel the same way. I think of the Hermes in my memories and I love him, but I look at the Hermes now and I hate him. But no matter how annoying or mean he gets, I still love him in my mind. Just not in real life anymore," he says.  
"except when he's back to his old self for a bit," I say and he nods.  
"except then. I guess you're right. It's like he's a completely different person who just so happens to look the same as him. And my heart knows it's not him, even if my mind does not," he says, looking intrigued with the idea.  
"yeah, except you'd probably know if he had a twin of something like that, right? And while doppelgängers are a great bedtime story, I've never heard of any pair actually encountering one another, so I'm gonna have to believe they're not really real. And even if they were, why would the real H just allow his doppelgänger to pretend to be him like this, especially around Liz? Also, if that guy is not H, then where is the real one?" I ask, shrugging.  
"that just doesn't make any sense, no matter how you look at it. The only logical conclusion, aside from the obvious – that you and I are just too hung-up on who he was to accept that he just changed as people sometimes do – is that it is really him, but there's just something screwing with his personality."  
"maybe..." Paolo just says, but his mind seems to be stuck on the doppelgänger-idea.

"what's going on?" I ask when I walk into the living room the next day and see several people there I've never met before.  
I look around and sigh.  
People like these guys give girls like me an inferiority-complex.  
There's a teenager who looks like she walked straight out of a magazine, a man – Dio – who would look good in just about any outfit – and that includes _my_ clothes, a tall, dark and handsome stranger – how cliché – who looks equal parts gorgeous and dangerous, a woman who manages to make the 'strict librarian style' look sexier than it has any right to be and an elderly couple, both people who obviously aged like fine wine.  
And then there's little old me, a girl who can't exactly be called 'ugly', but who only weird people like Paolo and H would describe as 'gorgeous'.  
Damn.  
"partial family meeting," Paolo says, snapping me out of my self-deprecating thoughts."come, I'll introduce you to _my_ cluster-fuck of a family."  
I laugh and shake my head, but I still walk over to where he's sitting and sit down next to him as the third person on the two-seater, but neither Paolo nor the teenage girl next to him seem to mind the lack of space.  
"this is my twin sister Diana," he says, nodding to the girl who seems to be no older than 17, even though Paolo seems about 25.  
"what? Seriously? She doesn't seem old enough to be your twin at all," I say, making her laugh.  
"I aged much faster mentally than I did physically, he went the other way around," she says and I put my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing when Paolo glares at her and then looks at me as if he's daring me to laugh.

"this is my mother and aunt Juno," he says, rudely pointing at the elderly lady sitting on one of the kitchen chairs they'd apparently brought into the room so that everyone could have a seat.  
"and her husband, my father and uncle Jove," pointing at the elderly – but ridiculously intimidating-looking – man sitting on the chair next to Juno.  
"this is my brother Alex – like your Alex, only far, far more annoying than that little demon of yours – and this here is Mina, another sibling of mine – you can never have too many of those, right? – and of course you know Dio, my baby-brother. He's the runt of the litter, but it doesn't bother him too much, so obviously you're more than allowed to bully him over it," Paolo says, smiling widely as he avoids something Dio throws at him.  
Dio really is 'the runt of the litter', as Paolo put it.  
All the other men are tall and intimidating, but Dio is kinda short and almost feminine.  
Still gorgeous, they all are – damn their perfect genetics – but more in a 'beautiful' way than in a 'handsome' way like the other men.  
I think about everything Paolo just said and then jab him in the ribs with my elbow.  
"ow, what was that for?" he asks, insulted and surprised.  
"don't call my baby a demon," I say.  
"might I remind you that it was you yourself who told me he was a little demon," he says, now sounding confused, and I shrug.  
"he is, and as his mother I am allowed to acknowledge that. You, on the other hand...are not."

"so, why are you having a...wait, did you say '_partial_ family meeting'? Like, there's more?" I ask.  
Juno laughs and looks decidedly proud.  
"oh, there's more. I couldn't very well stop at just five kids, could I? No, I have two more, Hermes and Caleb, and then there's my daughter-in-law Dahlia, Caleb's wive, and their twin boys, Ai and Kyle. And besides Jove I have three more siblings. And those are just the ones that keep in touch. Our entire family has too many members to count," she says.  
"huh, that must be nice," I say, a bit envious.  
"my entire family consists of me, my two kids, a retarded old woman who has the nerve to call herself my mother and a father whom I haven't seen in months." I shrug. "when I was younger, I always wanted to have a big family," I say.  
"well, just keep on having children and you can just make your own big family," Diana suggests and I laugh.  
"hmm, I would, but I'm a bit worried about screwing up the dynamics of our little family even more," I say honestly.  
"I already have the whole uncle/brother thing going on with Alex, so is it really a good idea to add half-brothers and -sisters to that mix?"  
Everyone looks at me in confusion, so I sigh and explain the whole situation to them.  
Or, at least, the part about Alex' family-relation to Liz.  
They didn't come here to listen to me complaining about my MIA father and my crazy religious mother.  
"Elizabeth is Hermes' daughter?" Juno, Dio and Mina all ask at the same time, all sounding utterly shocked by the news.  
The others seem less shocked, but I can see this news came as a surprise to all of them.  
"huh? You didn't know? Since you didn't seem surprised with Pollo dragging me, a complete stranger to you, into your family meeting, I figured you at least knew who I was 'in theory'. Otherwise him including me into this, whatever 'this' is, would make little sense. Then again, if he's anything like how I remember H being, I guess I should have known better than to expect him to not just do whatever the hell he wants whether it makes sense to anyone but himself or not," I say without thinking, making a few of them laugh, but the others simply nod their agreement, either not noticing or not caring about how insulting what I just said was to Paolo.  
Paolo himself, who I'm slowly starting to realize really is every bit as carefree – that's not to say 'arrogant' – as H was, just shrugs, clearly not the least bit bothered by my insulting assessment of his personality _or _his own family's agreement to it.

"Anyway, if this is about what – or rather _who –_ I expect this to be about, then him dragging me into this might actually make some sense after all, considering the fact that H being Liz' father is one of the few things I'm _not _currently extremely confused about. I was with H a little over a year ago. That's why I'm in the country again now, to look him up so he could get to know his daughter. Not that he seems to have any interest in that today, but he was glad for it the day before yesterday," I say, confusing myself again.  
Paolo gives me a look which tells me that while he _does _feel bad that his actions made me feel even more confused over this situation than I already was, that doesn't mean he has any intention of apologizing for it, which makes me laugh.  
"don't misunderstand, I'm not upset or anything, I'm simply acknowledging the fact that most of my current confusion could've been avoided by my not expecting any consideration or even sanity from you," I say and then I sigh when I realize that if the amused laughter all around me is anything to go by I just insulted him _again_.  
"I can't tell if you're doing this on purpose or not," he says, sounding annoyed and a bit offended and I start to apologize, but then I see the look in his eyes and I just sigh.  
"I promise I'm not. My brain-to-mouth filter just needs longer to wake up than the rest of me does," I admit, smiling innocently, trying to hide my annoyance at what I already know is coming.  
"but you're not going to apologize?" he asks, glaring at me.  
The others have stopped laughing and most of them now seem unsure of what their reaction to this should be, which makes me laugh.  
"yeah sure, whatever. I'm sorry," I say, hoping but not expecting that to be enough.  
He opens his mouth to respond with what I'm sure would be the most appropriate response he can think of, but then he surprises me by suddenly laughing.  
"_you're_ the one who insulted _me_, so why do I get the feeling like _I'm_ the one on thin, black ice right now?" he asks, surprising me so much that I just stare at him in complete shock for a few moments, which makes him laugh again.

"just my imagination?" he asks, smiling in a way that makes me suspect he's only pretending to be unsure to give me the 'easy out' that he's hoping I won't take.  
"no, it's just...that look," I say, confusing him.  
"H does it too, sometimes. He'll react to things in whatever way he thinks is most appropriate or how he thinks I expect him to react, but the look in his eyes gives it away. Why not just react normally? Why put on an act like that? I don't get it and it annoys me," I admit.  
He smiles sweetly and shrugs.  
"force of habit, I guess. I'm sorry. We don't always respond to things as people expect us to and it tends to make them uncomfortable, so it's usually easier to just go with the obvious response," he explains and I sigh.  
"Well, don't do it around me, it's seriously annoying. Especially since it doesn't even work, I can always tell anyway," I say and he laughs.  
"you're one of the few, believe me. Most people are perfectly happy being humored by us," he says, making me laugh as well, before turning back to his family.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Not much to say this time. We're finally getting to the actual plot, which is good, but it's still just a lot of sitting around and talking, which is not how I usually write things, so it has me a bit insecure about my writing. But my muse doesn't care, she'll send me wherever she wants me to go, regardless of how confident I am that I can get there properly.**

**Disclaimer: Still nothing ownable in this chapter that I can see.**

5.

"you're joking, right?" I ask.  
I've been listening quietly while the family had their little powwow, but this all seems just a little too insane for me to keep quiet any longer.  
"you do realize you're suggesting someone has possessed H, right? Like, what does that even mean? And if he's possessed, wouldn't he know it himself? I mean, there are times when he's back to his old self, you know? Wouldn't he use those moments that he's 'back in control' or whatever to, I don't know, tell someone that there's someone else inside his body with him? That's what I would do if I was in that situation, at least," I say.  
"well, yes, but what if he's unaware of the fact?" Diana asks and I sigh.  
"then he'd at least have told someone about the fact that there seem to be weeks missing from his memory at a time, right? If he's asleep or something while this other person is in control, that would explain how he doesn't know about it himself, but he would at some point have looked at a calendar and went 'huh, I wonder where the last _two _fucking _weeks_ went', right?" I ask, looking at Paolo for help, even though he's the one who came up with this cockamamie idea in the first place.  
"but what if he's not completely in control at those times? Maybe the other entity put false memories in his head of him actually living those days normally," he suggests and I sigh again.  
"actually, the girl has a point. There is no way he could've been possessed this long and not have realized himself that there was something wrong with him at least," Mina says. "if he has memories of himself living the way he normally would, he'd be confused by you, Dio and Leila suddenly being angry with him, seemingly without any reason to be, and that would tip him off that there was something wrong. Maybe not the first time, but if it keeps happening over and over, he'd eventually have realized that the problem lies not with the others, but within himself."  
I nod. "and if he does have the full memories of 'the other entity' and everything he's done, then he would start to wonder why he would treat everyone so horribly and act so out of character all the time," I say.  
"so either he has false memories, which wouldn't add up to reality, which would tip him off; or he has the real memories, which wouldn't add up to his personality, which would tip him off; or he has no memories at all, which wouldn't add up to the timeline and he'd realize soon enough that he's missing ginormous portions of his memory, which would tip him off. No matter what, there is simply no way he could've been possessed this long and not know about it. There must be another explanation."

"like what?" Juno asks, seeming to actually want an answer from me.  
"aside from the obvious, that he just changed or is suffering from some kind of mental disorder and there's nothing weird or supernatural going on at all?" I ask.  
They just look at me in silence and I sigh.  
"alright, it has to be a weird magic thing, I guess. Whatever. Well...I'm not sure what it could be. But how about this? What if everyone here writes down a timeline. Like, write down every time you've been with him – and if he was himself or this 'other entity' at the time – in the last three months or so. Then we put all those timelines together. At the least it'll give us a concrete answer about how long this has been going on and how often he's gone back and forth between himself and 'the other one' and if we're lucky the timelines might even overlap at some point," I suggest.  
"why would the times-lines overlapping be lucky for us?" Jove asks and I'm about to answer, but Mina – who I've already figured out is some kind of 'wunderkind', the smartest, most rational of them all, despite also being stuck on the idea that H's attitude is a supernatural problem, not a normal one – beats me to it.  
"because if the timelines overlap, meaning he was in two places at once, that means Hermes himself isn't the problem, there is just someone who looks like him that's causing trouble, which would make it much easier for us to fix this, whatever this is," she says and I nod.  
"like, for example, two days ago H spent the day with me. And that was 'the real one'. So if anyone happened to meet with 'the fake one' two days ago, that means there really are two of him. And, like I said, even if the timelines don't overlap, it'll still give us a little more information about whatever it is we're dealing with, right?" I ask, this time looking at Mina for help.  
Paolo still seems sold on his 'demon possession'-theory.  
Mina nods and everyone begins taking out pens and paper and writing down everything they remember from the last couple of months.  
I write down my own timeline, although it's only three days long and I haven't seen H at all since yesterday-morning, when I stormed out of his study, even though I'm currently living in his house.

"I cannot believe I'm writing down a timeline of my baby-daddy to figure out if he has a doppelgänger or if he's just possessed. This was not what I had in mind for my vacation in Greece," I mumble, but I still write down everything I know, making sure I get the exact timing right.  
"say what you will about this whole situation, but I bet this is the most interesting 'vacation' you've ever had," Paolo says, smiling and squeezing my knee before turning his attention back to his own timeline.  
"interesting is one word for it, I guess," I say. "but I figured I'd go looking for H, tell him about Liz and then spend the rest of my time here having a nice, relaxing vacation with the little ones. Not find H, tell him about Liz, sleep with his freaking _brother,_ find out H might be possessed and then completely forget that I even have little ones up until this very second," I say, getting up and running to the guest-room, where Liz and Alex are luckily still sleeping.  
I wake them up, bringing them down into the living room with me and I laugh when I see Diana scolding Paolo for sleeping with Hermes' winter-girl – whatever that means – when 'she's having a rough enough time as it is'.  
Paolo just looks up and me and winks, grinning like a Cheshire Cat.  
"oh, may I hold her?" Juno asks when she also notices me coming back into the room, a half-asleep Elizabeth in my arms.  
"hmm? Liz? Yeah, sure," I say absentmindedly, still mulling over H's timeline. I carefully lay Liz down in her grandmother's arms and get back to my almost empty piece of paper.  
Paolo did say that this strange behavior of H's is something that started about three months ago, so I guess my memories of him a year ago wouldn't do them any good, but other than those, I really don't have all that many memories of him. As much as I care about him, and what with him being my daughter's father, I actually don't know him all that well.  
"you're thinking too much again," Paolo says and I laugh.  
"just sleep, right? Can't really do that now, though," I say and he also laughs.  
"well, you seem to be just about finished with that, so I don't see why you can't take a little nap," he says.

"what game are you guys playing? Can I play?" Alex asks sleepily, coming to sit down on my lap.  
"oh, right. Hey Alex, do you remember all the times H was with you and Liz?" I ask, putting my arms around him and pulling him a little closer.  
"you mean like yesterday before you guys came home?" he asks, rubbing his eyes.  
"yes, and the day before that, and the day before that. It doesn't have to be perfect, but it would help if you could tell me what you know," I say.  
He thinks about that for a while and then just shrugs.  
"well, obviously he was with us two days ago, the day we met him. He was with us all day then, from the moment I woke up until you left with him to go to that discotheque," he says.  
I nod, not writing that down, since I was there the whole time.  
"And then he came back about ten minutes after you guys left, saying he forgot something. He went to his study, picked something up and left again. After that he didn't come home for another three hours. And then he stayed in his room most of the time. I don't know what he did when we were sleeping, but I didn't see him leave his study before yesterday-morning, when we heard Pollo's car," he says.  
"wait, go back. You say he came back after ten minutes? But we went straight to the club and that's a thirty-minute drive, we never turned back." I say, a bit confused.  
"he said he forgot something, went into his study, came back out and left," Alex repeats.  
"didn't come home for three hours? That's impossible. He was with me from 10PM until well after 3AM," Dio says, also confused.  
"two days ago he came over to my house in the afternoon, saying he wanted to borrow some of my books," Mina says, frowning at her timeline.  
The others all start comparing timelines and everyone comes to the same conclusion.  
"there are two H's'."

"actually, I'm starting to think H isn't the only one with a doppelgänger," I say.  
I can't believe that now _I'm_ the one coming up with the conspiracy theories, but whatever.  
In for a penny, in for a pound, right?.  
"what do you mean?" Paolo asks.  
"well, the real H wouldn't take me out to a club and then just leave for five freakin' _hours_ without telling me anything about where he's going or why or when he'll be back," I say. "and the one who came to the club with me was definitely the real one. So I'm guessing he left someone a message telling me what's what, right? And he's not stupid enough to leave an important message like that with the angry bartender who never made any secret of the fact that he can't stand me and would probably flat-out refuse to give me the message, so who did he tell? Because nobody told me anything. I was at the club until morning with Pollo and I never found out what had happened to H," I say, looking at Dio, as he was the one with him at the time.  
Dio doesn't answer at first, but just stares at me, his face a mask of pure dread.  
"he told Pollo," he eventually says softly.  
I look at Paolo, but he just looks confused.  
"guess we need to make a timeline for Pollo as well," I say, going right ahead writing down the times Pollo was with me.  
I don't actually know which Pollo is the real one, so I can't be sure if the one I was with was real or not, but whatever.  
And guess what?  
The timelines for Pollo overlap as well.  
Not only that, but when Mina suggested we make a timeline for everyone in the room, we found out that H and Pollo aren't the only ones with doppelgängers.  
Mina has one, Dio has one, Alex – Pollo's brother, not my son – has one, Diana has one and for some bizarre reason, even _I _have one.  
Turns out the reason Dio was so confused and amused when I came in asking him about H was because he'd seen me in the club twice before, but I never actually talked to him.  
He'd convinced himself I'd just gone there intending to ask about H, but then lost my nerve and left again.  
And only on the third try did I finally gather enough courage to actually ask about him.

"_I_ have a doppelgänger? But why? I'm nobody. What reason could there possibly be for someone to pretend to be me?" I ask.  
Juno laughs. "my dear, you are far from 'nobody'," she says, looking down at Liz, who is sleeping in her arms, with a look of adoration.  
"you are, at the moment, Hermes' favored girl, and possibly Pollo's, too. On top of that, you are the mother of Elizabeth, who is Hermes' daughter, which makes you a member of our family."  
I laugh.  
"well, thanks for the confidence-boost, but that's not what I meant. In the 'greater scheme of things' I am nobody. Yeah, I'm Elizabeth's mother and those two's 'favored girl', whatever that means, but I wasn't anything when this started. My doppelgänger has been here for two weeks, according to your timelines. She never actually conversed with any of you, but Dio saw her in the goddess central twice while I was in another country. Back then the only people who even knew of Liz' existence were me, my mother and Alex – my son, not this guy – and more or less my father, and I hadn't even met Pollo yet at that time. Hermes probably never thought about me, let alone talk about me enough to warrant someone taking on my appearance to get to him," I say. "at the time my doppelgänger was 'created' or whatever, in the eyes of everyone here, I was nobody."  
"that is not entirely true," Dio says, seeming confused and deep in thought.  
That seems to be everyone's favored state of mind today.  
"he did talk about you. A lot. He didn't know about Liz at the time and he didn't tell us your name or what you looked like, but he did talk a great deal about 'his precious winter-girl'," he says, making me smile happily before snapping myself back to attention.  
"to you?" I ask.  
"to _everyone_. You made quite the impression on the kid," Jove says, smiling kindly.  
He looks scary, but in a 'get off my lawn, you stupid kids', grandfatherly kind of way, which is kind of endearing.  
"he's right. If I had to hear one more story about Hermes' 'winter-girl',..." Alex says, making a strangulation-gesture with his hands.  
"we get it, she was pretty and nice and awesome and fun. And now she's gone, get over it," Diana says exasperatedly, as if H is standing right here telling her yet _another _story about his winter-girl.  
Of course I'm just sitting here smiling like an idiot, feeling happier than I've felt in a long time.  
Everyone laughs when they notice it and of course my face turns beet-red, but I'm still happy.

"but..." I say when my happy feeling finally fades enough for the stress of the day to come knocking at my door again.  
"how did this person know my face? She obviously didn't know my name or anything like that, since she would've found out about me the same way you guys did. H probably talked about 'his winter-girl' to the doppelgängers, thinking they were you guys and the doppelgängers decided to use me to their full advantage, probably by creating a doppelgänger of me and having her pretend to be me to get to H and through him – for whatever reason – to you guys, right? But without knowing my name – since H only ever talked about 'his winter-girl' and not about 'Leila Virou, 22 years old, born and raised... – so my doppelgänger couldn't really come 'back' into his life, since she didn't have enough information about me to convince him she was me. But if she didn't even know my name, because H never told anyone my name, how the hell did she know my face?" I ask.  
"well, that's easy. She could've just followed Hermes any one of the times he went to America to check up on you," Jove says and then his eyes go big, as if he can't believe he just said that.  
"huh?" I ask, feeling a throbbing pain starting in the back of my head.  
"uh...well...I'm gonna go make us some tea," Jove says, escaping to the kitchen before I can question him about that remark.  
"I went to America several times," H admits, walking into the living room just as Jove exits.  
"I didn't know about Liz, of course. Well, I knew there was a baby in your family, but I always figured she was your sister, not our daughter," he explains, taking Elizabeth from his mother's arms and coming to sit down on the armrest of the two-seater next to me, Elizabeth opening her eyes and mumbling for a bit before falling right back to sleep.  
"the first time I went to check up on you I did notice you seemed a little...bigger than I remembered, but I figured you'd just put on some weight. Girls do that sometimes after a break-up, right? After that I couldn't go for a while because of my work, so the next time I saw you Liz had already been born and I figured I'd just missed your mother's pregnancy, not yours."  
"you were stalking me?" I ask incredulously.  
He just smiles sheepishly and shrugs.  
"well, I figured you probably didn't want me in your life, since you didn't give me your contact-information before you left, but I couldn't help wanting to see you again, so I just watched you from afar. I didn't really stalk you, I just went to check up on you, to make sure you were happy and healthy, a time or two,...or six," he admits.

"you were in my town_ six _times and you never came to say hi? Do you have any idea the stuff I had to go through to gather enough money to come here so I could tell you about Liz? Oh, wait, yes, you do, 'cause _I freakin' told you_. If you had just come over with some lame excuse about 'being in the neighborhood for whatever reason', you could've saved me so much time and money," I say, pinching the bridge of my nose, trying to calm myself down as the throbbing pain slowly morphs into a full-blown migraine-attack.  
"do you know how many cookies I sold for this? How many fake tears I had to cry? Do you have any idea how hard it is to fake crying _that_ often?" Alex asks, sounding almost as upset as I am, making me laugh and lightening my mood a bit.  
"I washed cars! I cleaned up other people's rooms! I don't even clean up my _own_ room, but I cleaned up other people's rooms!" He throws his hands in the air in an exasperated gesture, making me laugh again.  
"seriously though, the reason I didn't give you my contact-information is because I figured I'd probably never see you again anyway, considering we live so many miles apart. I thought it'd be easier if we had a clean break," I say, shrugging.  
H smiles down at me and strokes my cheek, showing me that half-smile that tells me that this is the real one, if the tightening in my chest is any indication.  
He leans down and kisses me softly and I melt into a puddle.  
Even though I found him three days ago, the whole deal with Elizabeth being his daughter and then the doppelgänger-stuff made it so that we never did get to rekindle the old flame like I'd wanted to.  
"happy ending?" Alex asks when H lets me go and lazily runs his fingers over my neck and shoulder, sending shivers down my spine.  
"hey, bro?" Pollo asks and H looks at him, but his fingers never leave my skin.  
"I know she's your 'precious winter-girl' and all, but do you mind sharing her with me? I've come to like her too, you know," Pollo says.  
H thinks about that for a second and then looks at me questioningly.  
I'd answer his unspoken question if I wasn't too busy laughing my ass off at Alex, who is now sitting on the floor at my feet, his hands over his ears, going 'ew, ew, ew, ew, ew, ew, ew' non-stop.  
Instead of saying anything I just reach behind me to grab Pollo's hand.  
H looks at our intertwined fingers and then smiles widely. "_our_ precious winter-girl," he says dreamily, running his fingers over my face again as Pollo runs his fingers over my arm, sending twice the shivers down my spine.  
This must be what heaven feels like.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: I've been sick for a while, so it took a little longer than usual to get a new chapter out this time and I think it's a bit shorter than the others (or at least less happens in it), but that's because I'm still not back to my usual 100% yet. It's been so long that I just wanted to get back to writing and get something out, even if it's a bit short, to get back in the swing of things.**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing**

6.

I open my eyes, cursing at the sunlight for making my head hurt and I can hear Pollo laughing from the bathroom.  
I reach blindly beside me and sigh happily when my fingers encounter warm flesh.  
"good morning, my precious winter-girl," H says sleepily and I chuckle.  
"I have a name, you know?" I ask, leaning towards him so I can kiss him.  
Too tired to stay like that, leaning on my arms, I just let myself drop onto his chest and stay there for a bit.  
Both Pollo and H decided it was probably better if we kept the night-time activities split for now, considering I'm so tightly strung from the whole doppelgänger-thing right now any added stress might cause me to explode.  
And figuring out how I'm supposed to have sex with two guys at the same time – even if they know all there is to know about it and have done this a million times before – might just be that tiny bit of added stress that I can't handle right now.  
But that doesn't mean either of them was willing to sleep alone and let the other one sleep in my bed, so I went to bed with H about an hour before Pollo came up and he dropped down into the bed next to us and went right to sleep.  
Guess he was pretty tired from the entire mess as well.  
That's not to say it was all bad.  
I mean, Pollo did get his brother/boyfriend back – I'm still not sure how I feel about that one, even if I am okay with being shared – and we found out a lot about what exactly is going on around here.  
They do say that when you understand the problem, you're halfway to knowing the solution, right?  
I feel the bed dip besides me and smile contently when I feel Pollo running his warm hands over my back.

"you know?" I ask, trying desperately to keep my brain awake so I can keep enjoying this for a few more moments.  
"hmm?" Pollo asks and I sigh happily when he runs his hands over my legs.  
"your name is an acronym," I say, pointing blindly behind me to where I suspect Pollo is lying.  
"really?" he asks.  
I nod.  
"Paolo is an acronym for Apollo, though there's an L missing. But there's an extra L in your nickname Pollo," I say.  
I'm not entirely sure where this is coming from, it's just something my sleepy mind came up with.  
Pollo's hands still, apparently I surprised him with that little tidbit of useless information.  
"really?" he asks, his tone light and joking, but I can sense an underlying tension in his voice that I'm too tired to figure out right now.  
"u-huh," I say, nodding. "and it fits, too. Because you're Hermes' brother and Apollo is Hermes' brother."  
I lay down on my back and yawn, seconds away from falling asleep again.  
"and your little brother, Dio, that's short for Dionysus, is the little brother of Apollo. And your twin-sister is called Diana, which is the roman name for Artemis, who is _Apollo_'s twin sister," I say, counting down my fingers, even though I'm not really making a list of anything.  
"and Mina is short for Minerva, which is the Roman name for Athena and Mina is your sister and Athena is Apollo's sister," I say.  
I would've said more, not sure what, since I was talking pretty much on autopilot the whole time, but I can feel the heavy darkness of sleep pulling me under, so I just yawn again and get comfortable.  
The last thing I see before my eyes close is Pollo sharing a shocked look with Hermes.  
Wonder what that's about. Maybe they figure I've gone crazy or something, but whatever.  
If they're going to be with me, they better get used to my crazy half-asleep talking.

As I wake up, I can hear Pollo and H whispering about something, but I can only make out some of the words, since they're not on the bed anymore.  
They seem to have moved to the bathroom.  
I don't open my eyes just yet, but instead I just lie there, enjoying that wonderful moment in between sleeping and being awake.  
"maybe we need to change them," I can hear H saying.  
He seems to be getting agitated, so his voice is rising, making it easier for me to understand the words."if she can figure it out when she's half-asleep,..."  
"yeah, but then again, she was half-asleep, maybe she doesn't even remember," Pollo says, his voice also rising, as if to keep up with H's volume.  
"and what if she does?" H asks and Pollo sighs.  
"well, I don't know. We can't tell her she's delusional. You know damn well I can't lie," he says.  
"either way, that doesn't change the fact that we'll have to change our names...again. If she can figure it out, then maybe other people can too. I told you we were getting too lazy with them," H says.  
I think about that for a second, now fully awake, and realize they're talking about the crazy theories I came up with this morning, the last time I was 'awake'.  
Their voices have dropped again, as if they suddenly realized they're getting too loud, so I can't understand everything they're saying, but I can hear enough to know they're talking about the names-thing and the doppelgängers, something about changing their names and not telling each other about it until they're sure the person they're talking to is the actual person they want to be talking to.  
That way, they could recognize the doppelgängers easily, just pay attention to what the other person is calling them.  
I'm not thinking about the doppelgängers right now, I'm too busy wondering why they're taking my sleep-talking so seriously.  
It's not like they're actual Greek gods, so who cares if their names happen to resemble those of the gods?

I guess it'd make sense if they were the actual Greek gods, but let's forget for a minute that the Greek gods don't exist – and neither do doppelgängers, right? But I'm going to ignore that one for now –, their family dynamics don't fit either.  
Juno said all the kids were hers. In Greek myth only Ares and Hephaestus are hers.  
Pollo said she was his mother and she didn't disagree with him, even though in the myths Apollo was the son of Leta and he hated Hera – and she him – because she'd tortured his actual mother to punish her for Zeus' infidelity, since she couldn't actually punish Zeus himself.  
Juno had said Caleb – which in this crazy reality would be short for Khalkeús, one of Hephaestus' many names – was married to Dahlia and had two children by her. But Dahlia would be short for Habrodíaitos, which is another name for Aphrodite.  
And everyone knows Aphrodite's marriage with Hephaestus didn't last very long, considering she cheated on him with Ares and a whole slew of other men, but mostly Ares – which I guess would be Alex in this story – and divorced Hephaestus pretty soon after marrying him and she didn't bear him any children.  
"what're you thinking about?" Pollo asks as he walks back into the room and sees that I'm awake.  
"well, I've figured out Dahlia is Aphrodite, from Habrodíaitos; you're Apollo; Alex is Ares, this one I'm guessing he just chose a name that sounded kinda like the real one; Diana is Artemis, from her roman name; Mina is Athena, from her Roman name Minerva; Dio is Dionysus; Caleb is Hephaestus, from Khalkeús; Juno is Hera, from her Roman name; and Hermes is – obviously – Hermes. So I'm guessing that makes Jove Zeus, but I can't figure out the name-connection there," I say honestly.  
No sense pretending I don't know any of this stuff.  
Even if the family-connections are screwed up, there's no denying that all of them have names that can – to a certain point – be linked to the names of the Greek or Roman gods.  
"Jove is short for Jupiter, which is Zeus' Roman name," Pollo says, sighing deeply and coming to sit on the bed next to me.  
"yeah, I probably should've figured that out. Guess I was looking for something complicated and completely overlooked the most simple answer," I say.

"and in case you were wondering: Caleb's kids, Ai and Kyle, short for Aineas and Akylas. And my uncles are Silos, which stands for..."  
"Agesilaos, an epithet of Hades," I say.  
He looks down at me, obviously impressed that I'd figured that out so quickly, but then again, he doesn't know that I spent four years of my life learning everything I could possibly learn about the Ancient Greek belief-system, since it was the most interesting religion I'd found when I was 'looking for my own faith' after I'd renounced my Christianity.  
"and Gaieo," H says, also sitting down onto the bed on the other side of me.  
He remains silent, waiting for me to figure this one out.  
Well, the only male we haven't had yet is Poseidon, so I already know what I'm looking for.  
"Gaieochos, the earth-shaker, an epithet of Poseidon," I say and he nods, smiling widely.  
"and the last one, our aunt, is Louisa," Pollo says.  
I think about that for a long time and right before Pollo is about to just tell me, it hits me.  
"of course, Demeter Louisa, the mild. Duh," I say.  
"it confused me for a second because it's such a 'normal' name compared to the other ones. But what about Hestia then?" I ask and then I mentally slap myself as I realized I'm actually buying into my own sleepy delusion.  
"she doesn't keep in touch much. Stopped talking to us a couple thousand years ago when she realized that because she gave up her spot as an Olympian to Dio, she was no longer worshiped as much as she used to be, so she tried to get father to switch her and Dio back, but he refused, and she got real prissy about that," H says, sounding utterly bored, as if he's just talking about the weather and not about some weird alternate universe or something where he's an actual god.  
"huh. But I don't think I know any gods called Aineas and Akylas," I say, trying for the same nonchalance these two seem to have about the whole thing. "or even demi-gods for that matter. I know A-e-neas, which was the son of Anchises and Aphrodite and was some minor hero in the Trojan war – no twin, by the way – but no A-i-neas. No Akylas either. Atlas? yes. A-ky-las? no."

"they're only four years old, of course there wouldn't be any record of them in stories written several millenniums ago," Pollo says, as if I should've somehow known that.  
"well, _excuse_ me for not knowing all the ins and outs of Greek Divinity," I say, a bit offended. "all I have to go on here are 'stories written several millenniums ago'."  
"it's not really 'Greek Divinity', considering we're still in charge of the entire world. We just didn't start mingling with humans until the time of Ancient Greece, so before that no-one knew our real names or what we looked like, which is how we somehow became 'Greek gods'," H says, shrugging.  
"and yet, here we are, in Greece, where you guys live," I say, also shrugging and sitting up.  
This is not a conversation to be had lying down.  
"yes, but we were also Roman gods at some point in time, and Norse gods, and Egyptian gods, and even modern western gods, though they all called us by different names," Pollo says. "so we're not really Greek. Greece just happens to be the favored country for some of us. Hep and Aphrodite live in Paris with the twins, Sei lives in Hawaii, Demeter lives in Australia,..."  
H nods.  
"although, talking about how many different names we've had, I have to say the modern ones are not very original or inspired," he says.  
I look at him questioningly and he laughs.  
"well, in Christianity, Zeus is worshiped as 'God'. They didn't even give him a name. Just...God. And the rest of us are angels and we were given names that were actually pretty common baby-names at the time. Michaël, Raphaël,..." he says, smiling widely.  
"you think that's bad? The Muslims just call all of us Allah. They just turned us into several aspects of this one god so they wouldn't have to come up with so many different names," Pollo says.  
I can't help it, I start laughing.  
This is by far the most ridiculous conversation I've ever had.  
"Buddhists think there are many gods, but they are all actually different reincarnations of this one original god," I say, shrugging.  
"yeah, but at least they went through the trouble of coming up with separate names for us. How are we supposed to introduce ourselves to Muslims, if we'd ever need to? 'hey, I'm Allah, and so is this guy, and this guy, and these girls, and those two, and...'," Pollo says, making me and H laugh again.

"I have to say, the most...amusing part, to me, is not the names," I say.  
They both look at me questioningly and I shrug, smiling a bit.  
"to me it's the fact that there are wars starting over who worships the 'right' god, even though they're all actually worshiping the same people, only with different names and looks," I say.  
"Christians call everyone who doesn't worship their god a heretic and say those people won't get into heaven, as if heaven is only for the lucky ones who happen to blindly pick the right faith out of the over 600 different religions presented to them. So they starts wars with the Jews and with the Muslims, they look down on the Wiccans, the Hellenists, the Hindus,... How crazy is that? Basically, their Christian 'God' is the same as the Greek 'Zeus', who is the same as the Hindu 'Ishvara', who is the same as the Wiccan 'Horned God' – not true, The Horned God is actually Pan, since the Wiccans don't worship Zeus as the supreme god, but whatever – and so on. That's like someone wearing a 'red orange' shirt starting a war with someone wearing a 'sunset orange' shirt. It's pretty much the same color, but it has a different name, which makes 'red orange' so fucking much better than 'sunset orange'." I stop talking, not because I'm out of things to say, but because H and Pollo are too busy laughing their asses off to still be listening.  
Also, I'm kinda out of breath.  
I tend to rant about religion, considering I spent the better half of my life studying it intensely, looking for something I could believe in that didn't involve me hating or looking down on other people.  
"did you just compare my dad to an orange T-shirt?" Pollo asks before falling into hysterics again.  
I just shrug and wait for them to calm down, something that takes a lot longer than it should.  
It wasn't that funny.

"hey dad, we just found out that, as far as religions go, you have nothing to complain about. It could be worse, after all. At least there's not some religion that likens you to _a T-shirt_," Pollo says, walking into the living room, falling back into hysterics for the seventh time.  
"it was a metaphor, jeez," I say, but Pollo just laughs again.  
Jove looks at me questioningly and I shrug.  
"we were talking about modern religions and I made a remark that so many people go to war over whose supreme God is the best one to worship they might as well be going to war over whether 'a red orange shirt' or 'a sunset orange shirt' is the best kind of orange shirt to wear. And then this happened," I say, pointing at Pollo, who is again laughing.  
H walks in behind me, completely calm again.  
Only for a second though, because as soon as he sees Pollo kneeling on the floor, doubled over in laughter, he starts chuckling again as he's soon laughing as hard as Pollo is.  
"it was a freakin' metaphor," I say, throwing my hands up in an exasperated gesture when I notice Diana's now also chuckling and will probably soon be following the two into hysterics, and sitting down on one of the couches.  
For a second I'm confused as to why I said 'freakin'' instead of 'fucking', but then I notice Juno holding a sleeping Elizabeth with Alex sitting at her feet surrounded by crayons and paper.  
I'd forgotten I'd slept in today, so of course those two would already be out of bed by now, it's almost noon.  
Whenever there are children near I become almost physically unable to swear.  
Even when I haven't yet consciously realized they were there, I'll still automatically use words like 'darn' or 'freakin'' instead of the actual curses.  
"thanks for taking them. I hadn't realized how long I'd been sleeping," I say and Juno just smiles and nods, not seeming at all bothered that she had to take care of kids that weren't her own.  
Well, if she really is Hera, then she is considered 'the mother goddess' so it makes sense that she'd enjoy taking care of little ones.

"are you finally done?" I ask when, almost twenty minutes later, Pollo, H and Diana seem to have finally calmed down.  
Pollo thinks about that for a second, takes a few deep breaths and then nods.  
"ow, my head hurts," H complains.  
"that's what happens when you go insane for so long," I say and I shrug.  
"ah, come on, darling. Don't be mad. It's just that we're so used to people finding out about our dad being Zeus and immediately falling to their knees and singing 'holy is the lord' or trying to sacrifice their cat to him – that actually happened once, no lie – that you threw us for a bit of a loop when your first reaction was to compare him to an orange shirt," H says, sitting down on the couch next to me, wiping the tears off his cheeks, his chest still shaking with barely repressed laughter.  
"that was your_ first_ reaction?" Jove asks incredulously, as if he can't believe I _didn't_ fall to my knees in worship.  
"well, I don't _have_ a cat," I just say, crossing my arms defiantly, and he smiles.  
"but actually, no. My first reaction was trying to figure out how you went from 'Zeus' to 'Jove'. Since I'd been deciphering Aphrodite's and Hephaestus' names, with the whole Habrodíaitos and Khalkeús thing, I was thinking too complicatedly, so I couldn't come to the really simple conclusion that it was just short for Jupiter. Comparing you to an orange shirt was my second reaction. So sorry, no 'holy is the lord' for you. Wait...someone actually tried to _sacrifice their cat_?" I ask, H's words finally fully reaching my brain and short-circuiting something there as I try to imagine anyone having that extreme a reaction to finding out there's a god in the house.  
"hah! God in the house," I say, shaking my head and laughing when everyone looks at me like I've finally lost my mind altogether.  
"sorry. It's a song a couple of weird friends of mine came up with back when I was in high-school and it popped into my head just now. So anyway, sacrificing a cat? What...how..._why_?" I ask, my brain once again short-circuiting at the idea of it.  
"well, ideally you'd sacrifice a bull, but those people only had a cat," Jove says, smiling slightly, probably recalling the time he met those weird people.  
"it took twenty minutes to convince them I didn't actually want them to kill their family pet for me."  
"man. I mean, I can understand how some people – you know, _normal _people – would have a pretty strong reaction to finding out they're in the presence of an actual factual god, but sacrificing their pet? My brain can't even come up with an image of that kind of reaction, let alone figure out what logic there could've possibly been behind it," I say, shaking my head in wonder. "normal people are weird."  
"well, dead cat or no dead cat, we need to get back to business," Pollo says, completely serious once again, looking at all the timelines we've drawn up yesterday-evening.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: I'm still sick, have to go to the doctor next wednesday, but I'm writing properly again, so that's a plus. I'm no good at writing smut, so I'm just skipping those parts for the time being, sorry for all you perverts out there who wanted some hot godly action. :)**

**Big thanks to Em for the lovely reviews. They really help me to keep going when I'm feeling sick or insecure about my writing.**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing but the hope that one day my paranoia about copyright will let up and I can just leave the disclaimer out when it isn't necessary.**

7.

"well, first we'd need to make sure everyone is here and everyone is, well...everyone. It wouldn't do us much good to discuss our plans for getting rid of the doppelgängers while there is a doppelgänger in the room," I say, shrugging and taking the papers from Pollo, sorting them out and putting them on eight different stacks, one for each person.  
"well, we know you're you. No doppelgänger could ever hope to be as awesome as you," H says, making me smile, even though I was supposed to be angry with him.  
"maybe, but you can't really base your entire observation on 'she's awesome'," I say.  
"maybe not, but remember what we talked about before, about feeling it here, but not here?" Pollo asks, pointing at his head and then his heart.  
I nod.  
"well, I feel it here, both for you and for Hermes. You?" he asks.  
"same for me. Then again, the three of us have been here, together, all this time, so it would've been pretty hard for a doppelgänger to take one of our places without the other two noticing," I say.  
The others look at us questioningly and I shrug.  
"our hearts know when the person we're looking at isn't actually the person we care about, even if our heads don't," I explain.  
"before, when I looked at H, or at least at the doppelgänger of H, I felt anger and annoyance, nothing else. But when I look at the real one, there's love. It's the simplest – and probably the least reliable – way of knowing," Pollo says.

"so when I look at Zeus and I feel love, that means he's real?" Juno asks.  
I think about that for a second, but not because the question is a difficult one to answer, but because, now that she no longer needs to hide it from me, she suddenly started calling Jove Zeus.  
That's going to get really confusing really soon, especially if everyone suddenly decides to start using their 'real' names.  
"well, as far as we know, he doesn't actually have a doppelgänger...yet," I say eventually, focusing on the problem on hand and ignoring the naming-issue for now. "so he's cool, I guess. Though it probably wouldn't hurt to check every now and then if he still remembers little things that the doppelgänger couldn't possibly have found out about. The name of his first pet or something like that."  
"maybe we should just create a codeword or something," Mina suggests. "when someone knows that word, they're the real one."  
"that's a horrible idea!" I yell, startling everyone.  
"no offense, but seriously, _horrible_ idea," I say, forcing myself to be a little calmer, shaking my head.  
I hurry to explain when everyone looks at me questioningly, and Mina a bit insultedly.  
"I've seen movie after movie after movie where they tried that one and in every single one of those movies the bad guys found out about the codeword and started using it as well, eventually even – while pretending to be the real ones, and being believed to be the real ones because they knew the code-word that only the real ones were supposed to know – changing the codeword behind the real guys' backs, so that when the real guys tried to use the old codeword, they were believed to be the fake ones... It always ends up in a big chaos where nobody trusts anybody anymore, not even themselves. And then everyone dies a horrible death or gets locked away in an asylum for all of eternity. So anyhow, passwords: BAD idea! No offense," I say, getting more exited with every word I speak as I realize I'm currently in one of those movies.  
Awesome.  
Mina chuckles, no longer insulted, and shrugs.  
"guess I didn't watch the same movies you did," she says. "are there any movies with this kind of situation in them were the good guys won?"

"uh...no," I say. "they all die a horrible death or get locked away in an asylum for all of eternity. Always. That's the fun of those movies. They're supposed to be scary and confusing and 'blood and gore' and all that. Although there are some movies that have a kinda happy end, those usually end with just one or two people surviving the whole ordeal and I'm kinda hoping we'll find a solution where all of us survive, with our collective sanity still intact, or as 'intact' as it ever was, anyway."  
"what solution did they come up with in the movies where just one or two of them survived?" Mina asks. "maybe we can use those solutions and just modify them a bit."  
I laugh and shake my head.  
"usually it's just the one person. They'll end up trusting no-one and just kill every single person they meet. Then they walk out alive because both the good guys and the bad guys are all dead. The ones where two people survive are usually when two people have been together from the start, never leaving each other's sight for even a second and they team up to...well, kill every single person they meet until only they remain. And those movies usually end in 'suspense' with them looking at each other suspiciously or hiding a weapon behind their backs when they're walking towards the other person or something, so you know they're going to end up killing each other anyway after the movie has already ended," I explain.  
"well, I vote we don't use that solution," Jove says and I raise my hand, voting with him.  
Soon everybody has their hand raised, so we start looking for another solution.  
"Mina?" I ask when I suddenly think of something.  
"yes?" she asks.  
"how come you just had the worst game-plan in the history of ever? Aren't you supposed to be 'das wunderkind' or something? And while we're at it, why did you bring the attention to 'what are we going to do about the doppelgängers' while we were supposed to be making sure there are no doppelgängers in our midst before we started on that? Seems like you made two stupid mistakes in a row. So either you're having a really off day or this is about to turn into one of my movies, where everyone looks at everyone else suspiciously, because no-one seems to be acting the way they should," I say, feeling increasingly exited at the prospect.

Everyone turns to look at Mina, who looks decidedly uncomfortable, but doesn't respond immediately.  
"also, why did you seem insulted by me telling you your idea was a bad one? I only just met you and even _I_ know you're never happier than when someone disagrees with you on something, because that means you get to go into an all-out debate to prove how you are right and the other person is wrong," I continue before she can even think up a response.  
Several of the others nod and Mina is still silent.  
"this is stupid," she says eventually.  
"so I had a bad idea, it's not the end of the world and it's definitely not undeniable proof that I am a doppelgänger. In fact, if we are going to turn into one of your movies, this would be the moment where I mention that if you were a doppelgänger, it'd make sense for you to accuse someone else of being a doppelgänger, to throw the suspicion off yourself," she says.  
I laugh.  
"oh, I am loving this! I am smack in the middle of my all-time favorite kind of movie," I say happily, bouncing excitedly on the cushions of the couch, making Pollo and H chuckle and mumble something about no doppelgänger being that awesome _or_ that weird.  
"anyway, so you said you never watched those movies, but then you know enough about them to make a sarcastic remark about an overused trope in them? What's up with that? Did you see those movies or didn't you? No matter. More importantly, why would I try to 'throw the suspicion off myself' when I was never a suspect in the first place? Actually, by calling you out, I only succeeded in drawing attention to both you and myself, which would be pretty stupid, considering before now, everyone was already convinced I was the real me," I say, making an beckoning gesture with my hands.  
"the ball's on your court, wunderkind. Now gimme a good one!"  
"you are entirely too excited about this," Alex – the brother, not my son – says, but I see a suspicious glimmer in his eyes that tell me he's enjoying this as much as I am.  
"I love, love, love psychological horrors," I admit. "which is weird, considering I'm not a violent or a sadistic person at all, but whatever."  
Mina sighs.  
"fine, let's go back to the start and ask everyone meaningless questions to determine if we're all real or not. Though questioning you wouldn't do us much good, since we know next to nothing about you," she says.  
"that was not a good one, that was boring," I say, a bit disappointed, and I stop bouncing.  
I was really hoping this would turn into the 'everyone suspects everyone' kind of situation that make psychological horrors so awesome.

I sigh deeply and shrug.  
"fine then. Pollo?" I ask.  
"how many ladies were sitting at my table the day we met?" he asks.  
"that doesn't count. Even I know the answer to that, since I was there," Dio says. "you were sitting there with three of them."  
I laugh and shake my head.  
"wrong!" I say happily.  
"there weren't any, they were all bimbos, not ladies," I say, making Pollo laugh and nod.  
"H?" I ask.  
"how many times did I invite you over to my place the day we met?" he asks, making me laugh again.  
"that's a tough one. Let me see," I say, thinking back to that day.  
I'd just spent a wonderful evening with him when I got up to leave and he asked me to let him take me to some nearby playgrounds instead of leaving so sadly all by myself.  
When I refused, he asked if I'd accompany him to one more bar then, which I also refused.  
Then he asked me, a bit annoyedly, if I wanted to go have hot sweaty sex with him in the park, since being polite obviously wasn't getting him anywhere, which I also refused.  
After that I went to my hotel, alone.  
"huh," I say.  
"see, she doesn't know the answer," Mina says, sounding like she'd already won the fight.  
"I just realized you actually didn't invite me over to your place. The playgrounds, another bar and the park, but never your place. I always just remembered it as 'you inviting me over to your place and me refusing'," I say, completely ignoring her.  
"would you have gone with me if I had invited you to my place instead?" he asks, running his fingers over my arm and staring at me with so much adoration in his eyes my heart – how cliché – actually skips a beat.  
Literally.  
Wow, that's kinda unhealthy, isn't it?  
I smile and shrug.  
"probably not, although, if I had known that _this_ was your place, that might've changed the game we were playing in its entirety," I admit.  
He chuckles and leans down to kiss me.  
"I guess I'm glad I didn't invite you over to my place then," he says, kissing me again and again until I sigh happily and lean into him.  
"I rather like this game we're playing."  
I don't respond, just staring at him, my brain turned to mush, until Jove clears his throat, probably to get our attention, and I sigh and pull away from H.

"well, since the people in suspicion are me and Mina and I've just proven myself before two witnesses who were not suspects, that leaves you, wunderkind," I say, looking at Mina. "and might I say that no matter if you are a doppelgänger or not, I am severely disappointed by your inability to turn this into the 'every man for himself' that I was hoping to see."  
"hmm, but you yourself said that you three had been together all this time and that no one of you could've been replaced without the other two knowing about it, right? And you said you didn't suspect Hermes or Apollo because 'you still felt love for them'. And they didn't suspect you for the same reason. But you never actually said anything about the possibility that all three of you could have been replaced and you're just absolving each other of suspicion and we're just going with it because 'if three people say the same thing, it must be true'," Alex – the brother – says."besides, if you were a doppelgänger, it would make sense that you'd want everyone to suspect everyone else, because that would be the easiest way for you to act however you damn well feel like acting – which you would need to do, since you don't have enough information about the real winter-girl to act like her – without us thinking too hard about it, since we'd all be too busy suspecting one-another to pay much attention to you."  
Now everyone is looking suspiciously at Mina, me, H and Pollo, and Jove is also regarding Alex – the brother – himself with a suspicious eye.  
"yes, yes, yes! Now that's what I'm talking about!" I yell, happily bouncing again, making Pollo, H and Alex – the brother – laugh.  
"but, sadly, as much as I'm enjoying this, I am now – for whatever reason – extremely turned on, so I want to hurry up and end this game so I can grab either one of my boyfriends – or both, I haven't decided yet – and get back to my room," I say, making everyone laugh.  
"so let's end this now: there is one thing I want to ask and everyone here should know the answer to my question, so that'd make this easier. Gods are immortal, right? So do they heal faster than us mere mortals do?" I ask, mostly because I have an idea that might help, but also because I'm still trying to figure out this whole god-thing, though I don't fully believe it yet.  
With the doppelgänger-business going on, I don't have the time to really ask the questions I want answered about the god-thing.  
Everyone looks at me in confusion and then they nod, even Alex – my son – nods.

"and these doppelgängers, would they also be immortal? And if they are, would they heal as fast as you guys would?" I ask.  
They think about it for a second.  
Mina, Alex – my son – and Dio shrug and the others shake their heads, albeit a bit hesitantly.  
"well then," I say, reaching out and grabbing Mina's hand before she can react, slamming it down onto the table and stabbing it with one of the pencils that were on the table.  
She screams and everyone tries to help her, but it's already too late.  
Her hand is bleeding and it's not healing from what I can see.  
"keep an eye on that wound, see how long it takes her to heal it. If necessary, stab yourself to see how long it takes you to heal. If she's decidedly slower at healing than the rest of you, she's probably a doppelgänger. If not, then she might be the real Mina or doppelgängers might be immortal as well, healing just as fast as you guys do. Either way, that'll give us another piece of information that might come in handy," I explain when everyone looks at me in horror, anger and confusion.  
"now then," I say, getting up and turning to face H and Pollo.  
"I'm going to go upstairs. Whoever is fastest in following me,..." I say, leaving it at that and going for the stairs.  
As I suspected would happen both of them get up at the same time, running after me.  
I'd already decided I'd let them try to teach me how the whole three-way-thing works, but no reason I can't at least make them work for it, right?  
Downstairs I can hear Mina – I have already decided in my mind that she is the fake Mina, because there is just too much evidence against her, which is the only reason I don't feel guilty about stabbing her like that – cussing up a storm and trying once more to put the suspicion back to me by telling them 'I'm getting away' and 'I'm conveniently taking the other two with me', but my little experiment has everyone intrigued enough that they don't try to stop me or come after me and they all keep monitoring Mina instead.  
Right before I'm about to close the door to my room, the other two are already inside, arguing about who was here first, I can hear her saying something about needing fresh air, but no-one is willing to let her leave their side until that wound has completely healed.  
If she is not immortal, or she is, but she doesn't heal as fast as a goddess would, that could take a while.

"we should do this more often," I say, smiling as the feeling slowly creeps back into my toes.  
They went numb about halfway through.  
I wasn't complaining at the time, so I'm not complaining now, even though it stings a little.  
"yeah, we definitely should," Pollo says, also happy as he can be.  
H just grunts as an answer.  
He took most of the 'damage', since I was still too nervous to take the attention of both of them onto myself, so while H spent all his care on me, Pollo and I both spent all our time on him.  
Now Pollo and I are both feeling completely rejuvenated, but H is completely spent.  
"are you angry?" I ask, poking H until he turns to look at me.  
"why would I be angry?" he asks tiredly, looking confused.  
"because I bullied you," I say, shrugging.  
I couldn't help myself.  
The excitement I'd felt in the living room was still running wild inside of me and I had to direct it somewhere, so I used it up on him.  
I actually turned this into some kind of weird game where I tried to decide if H was the real Hermes or not by performing all kinds of 'tests' that I'm pretty sure have absolutely nothing to do with the doppelgängers.  
And of course Pollo went right along with it, I don't think there's anything he wouldn't go along with if I asked him to.  
H asked us to stop several times, begged us even, but I decided I didn't feel like it, so I didn't.  
H blinks a couple of times, like he can't believe what I just said and then he just laughs and shakes his head.  
"you are so innocent," he just says, smiling sweetly before falling asleep.  
"what did he mean by that?" I ask Pollo, but he also just laughs.  
"I love your innocence. It made all this so much more interesting. Wouldn't have been the same if you actually knew what you were doing as you were doing it," he says mysteriously before pulling me into his arms and pulling the blankets up over the three of us.  
"we're spending an awful lot of time in bed," I notice and he laughs again.  
"yeah, but then again, it has been three months since H and I were last together, it has been over a _year_ since H and you were together and you and me together is still so new and fresh. Put all that together and you get the best kind of honeymoon," he says.  
"the one with three people that doesn't involve any marriage?" I guess and he nods, grinning widely.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: I'm pretty proud of this chapter, I don't know why. I just have a good feeling about it.**

8.

I'm not exactly sure why myself, but for some reason I ended up going to Juno with my confusion about what'd happened in bed.  
I guess since she's married, she'd have some kind of 'insider information' that I lack or something.  
When I explained the situation to her and asked her what she thought, she just laughed for a long time and shook her head.  
"accidental role-playing? I can honestly say I've never heard of something like that happening accidentally," she says when I just keep looking at her questioningly, really waiting for an answer.  
"role-playing?" I ask, feeling even more confused than when I came here.  
"wait, like 'sexy police-officer' kind of role-playing?" I ask incredulously. "but it wasn't anything like that."  
Juno laughs again.  
"really? Then what was it like? Because from the way you explained it, it sounded a lot like 'sexy police-officer' to me," she says. "with you and Apollo being the interrogators and Hermes being the suspect."  
I think about that for a second and suddenly realize she's right.  
"well...I guess, if you look at it like that. But that wasn't what I was doing. Hell, I'm not sure what I was doing. All I know is I had all this crazy energy inside of me and I had to do something with it," I say, shrugging.  
"right, and you ended up accidentally role-playing because of it. I can't tell you much about that, seeing as this is the first time in my many years that I've ever heard of that happening unplanned," she says.  
"well, you learn something new every day," I just mumble before getting up and walking back into the living room.  
"where did Mina go?" I ask, sitting down next to Pollo.  
H is still sleeping, we really wore him out so I don't think he'll be up any time soon.  
I'll just have to make sure there's some dinner left for him when he does wake up.  
"basement," Jove says, staring at the timelines intently as if looking for something he missed the last forty times he studied them.  
I can't blame him.  
Those stupid timelines are our only real lead on the doppelgängers.  
"and why is Mina in the basement?" I ask.

"her wound still hasn't healed yet and she kept trying to go outside, so to keep her from running away – and possibly sharing our new little 'test' with the other doppelgängers – we've locked her into the basement," Jove says.  
"okay, so that's where the fake Mina went, but where is the real one?" I ask.  
Jove grits his teeth and looks up, glaring at me like I'd personally insulted him or something.  
I cringe into Pollo's arms, trying to make myself as small as possible, make myself a smaller target if Jove decides to attack me and I can't stop the little shivers of fear running through my body.  
Pollo rubs my arm to comfort me and Jove sighs.  
"forgive me, I didn't mean to frighten you," he just says, going back to staring at the papers.  
"he's been trying to find a pattern in the movements of the real us and the fake us, but so far we're coming up empty-handed. All of us have been 'replaced' with doppelgängers at some point, so we know they know our patterns, even the irrational ones, like when Hermes went off with Dio suddenly for some reason, leaving you with me, but we don't know anything about their patterns. Or about our own, for that matter. If we could find out what the doppelgängers are using to find out our patterns, maybe we can use that same trick to monitor theirs," Pollo explains.  
"and also, if I can find out Athena's pattern, maybe I can find out where she went so suddenly and why she hasn't come back here yet. She wouldn't leave without telling someone here, especially knowing what she knows about the doppelgängers, but if she did tell someone and that someone wasn't actually one of us,..." Jove says and I sigh.  
"then we might never find out what she told that person," I say and he nods.  
"but none of us actually realized we had doppelgängers until the others told us they'd seen us at times when we couldn't possibly have been with them, right? So one thing we do know about the doppelgängers' pattern is that they might try to dictate our movements through trickery, but never through force," I say.  
He looks up at me questioningly – at least he's not glaring anymore.  
Old man he may be, but that guy is _scary_ when he's angry – and I shrug.

"well, they never kidnapped us or made us go somewhere by force, right? Because we would obviously notice something was up if we were forced into the back of a van every now and then. They may have tricked us, like by giving us messages through the others telling us to go somewhere, but it was always in a roundabout way. Like Pollo's doppelgänger approaching Hermes as he and Dio were leaving the club, hoping that they would give the message for me to him, which he could then refrain from giving to me, ensuring that I would not go home like H probably told me to, but instead I'd stay at the club, waiting for H to return, because I didn't know that he wasn't going to return. That way they had, like, at least one or two hours of free play in my form, with nobody wondering why they were seeing me twice and no chance of my doppelgänger running into me at any point, so long as she stayed far away from the club where she knew I'd be, still waiting for H to return because nobody told me he wouldn't return," I say, not sure I'm explaining it correctly, but Pollo and Jove seem to understand what I'm trying to say, so I guess it's fine.  
"and I guess they've been doing that a lot, which would explain why our 'patterns' are suddenly all over the place, even if they were far more predictable before this started. Take my situation again. Normally, when I go out to a club, I have a drink or two, dance a little, talk to some people. All in all, I'd stay there two, maybe three hours. A little more if I was having fun, but I normally wouldn't stay out _all night_, especially if my kids are with a nanny that night. However, that's exactly what I did. I stopped having fun after the first few minutes, so normally, if I'd been following my usual pattern, I'd have just gone home then. However, I didn't know when H was going to return, so I couldn't go home. I was basically forced to step outside my usual pattern, but in such a roundabout way that I didn't realize I was being forced at the time. And by being forced out of my usual pattern, I slipped into a completely different pattern. I had to stay in the club, because I had no idea where H had gone or when he'd be back. Because I couldn't leave the club, I accepted Pollo's invitation to have a few drinks with him. Because I had a few drinks with him, it was much easier for him to convince me to just stay all night, something that never would have happened had I not been forced out of my own pattern and into another one. So I don't actually think they know our patterns, I think they're creating them. Whoever we're dealing with, they know a great deal about human – or godly, whatever – psychology and they're using it to their full advantage to get us to do whatever is most convenient for them that we do," I say, taking a few deep breaths and smiling just because I feel like it.  
Could be the lack of oxygen – from talking too much without taking breaks to breathe – to my brain making me woozy.

"but if that's true, then there's an easy way to counter it," Mina says, walking into the door like she'd never left.  
I look at her hand, but I don't see any evidence of a (former) injury there, so I guess it's okay.  
I see the other two do the same.  
"simply plan ahead for everything we're going to do and tell at least three random people about any sudden changes that may have to be made to that planning. That way, not only do we always know where everyone is, so we can easily get to them when we need to, but it'll also be impossible for the doppelgängers to force us out of our normal patterns. Because, even if they'll know about the patterns – because, let's face it, the odds of us being able to keep a detailed list like that secret from them when we don't know who or when they'll be is impossibly small – they won't be able to make any changes to it. If we just decide to tell any three random people, and make sure they aren't always the first three people we happen to meet, they'll never be able to make sure they're all three of those people, unless they take over all our identities, all at once. And if they could get away with that, I have no doubt they would've done that by now. In other words, if we act as unpredictable as we can while staying safe inside our preplanned patterns, their knowledge of human psychology won't do them any good, since everything we do will be both predetermined and completely random. If we don't think about it at all, they won't get very far trying to change the way we think," she says.  
"well, look at that. Das wunderkind is back," I say happily.  
"you're not too dumb yourself, winter-girl, I never would have come up with the idea that they were steering us," Mina says, smiling sweetly.  
I laugh and shrug.  
"you say that, but you probably would have come up with the fact that they're experts in psychology, because even if you look like someone, in order to convince that person's closest friends and family that you are that person, you'd have to be good at psychology – being able to avoid or deal with any and all suspicion those people might have of you –, acting – being able to talk with the same accent, using the same kinds of words and body-language that person would use,... –, and observation, which is just another part of psychology – being able to pick up the smallest hints from your surroundings that'll tell you you're doing something either right or wrong and quickly adjust your performance to those little hints," I say.  
"and if you'd figured that out, you'd already know they're experts in psychology and it would've been a small step from there to figure they're also good at using psychology against us. So actually, you would have figured it out, though maybe a little slower and in a more roundabout way than I did," I finish, making Mina laugh. "you just gave an impressive speech which showed your superior intelligence...to prove your point that your intelligence 'isn't all that'," she says. "guess that was a pretty _stupid_ thing for me to do, huh?" I ask, making her laugh again and finally concede to my weird logic.  
"but then again, by doing something stupid like that, you just won an 'argument' with the goddess of intelligence and wisdom," Jove says, smiling. "which is not something you can do unless you are extremely intelligent."  
"so I'm super-smart...becauseI'm weird?" I ask and everyone nods.  
"awesome," I just say.

"where are the kids, by the way? They were with Juno when I went upstairs, but I just talked to her and they weren't with her," I say, suddenly realizing I've been forgetting and ignoring my kids a lot lately.  
Well, it was fine while they were with Juno, since she is Elizabeth's grandmother and parents send their kids off to go play with their grandparents all the time – even if Alex isn't really related to Juno, I'm hoping she'll start to see him as her grandson as well, like Hermes sees him as his son – but if they're not with Juno, I at least want to know where they are and if they need me.  
"wait, you just talked to Hera?" Jove asks.  
I sigh, not because of the question, but because apparently everyone is going to start using the Greek names.  
Normally I'd be okay with that, except it feels really weird to call these people the names of the Greek gods, even if they _are_ the Greek gods, which I'm still not sure they are.  
"yeah, I was with her right before I came into the room," I say, shrugging, once again deciding to ignore the names-thing.  
"Hera took the kids to a nearby park. She figured you wouldn't mind, since you were upstairs and didn't need them for anything. She wanted them to at least get to know their father's family – since Hermes seems to have already decided to just treat both of them as his own – in a more relaxed, fun environment. It doesn't exactly install happy, loving feelings in them to be around us when we're constantly leaving them to their own devices in favor or stressing over some problem of ours that has little to do with them. Ares and Artemis went with them," Jove says.  
"crap. That means we now have another doppelgänger to deal with. And if she has one, it's not unreasonable to think that you also have one or that you'll be the next to 'get' one," I say.  
"is she still in the kitchen?" Mina asks.  
I shrug.  
"I have no idea, we were done talking, so I just left and she stayed behind, but that was about ten minutes ago. I can't tell you if she's still there," I say.  
Mina looks at the kitchen-door, but doesn't make a move to go there.

"they're getting ballsy," she just says instead. "they must've known that we know mother isn't supposed to be inside the house, but they're sending her doppelgänger in anyway, despite the risk of her getting caught."  
"or maybe _because _of the risk of getting caught. Maybe it's an initiation," I suggest, making them all look at me questioningly.  
"like when you want to join this elite club and you have to do some extremely difficult test to prove your worth. Sending her in here while there's such a great risk of her getting caught would be the perfect test, because if she can get away with that, she'd have proven she can a) convince at least some of us that she's the real one, b) handle the pressure of being so close to getting caught without it messing up her act, and c) possibly handle a situation where she _does_ get caught by convincing us we're wrong about whatever we think we know. Those are the three things you'd definitely need to be able to do if you're going to pretend to be someone – especially a goddess – in the face of her loved ones, people who have spent years – in her case thousands upon thousands of years – with her and who know her better than anyone else in the world. Plus, if she manages to pull this off, pretending to be her when we know she's not supposed to be here, that proves that she'll have absolutely no problem pretending to be her in a situation where she_ is_ supposed to be here," I explain.  
Pollo stares at me for a long time and then smiles.  
"you know, I just realized that not only are you pretty and fun, you are also almost as intelligent and smart as Athena is, only in a far less annoying know-it-all kind of way," he says, making me laugh.  
"not even close, you're obviously biased, but even so...well, if I'm going to keep _two_ guys happy, I'm gonna need as many amazing characteristics as possible," I say.  
The door opens and Juno walks in from the hallway, prompting Mina to storm into the kitchen, hoping the fake Juno is still there and she can catch her.  
Guess she wasn't sure if she could trust me, so she didn't want to insult her mother by accusing her of being a doppelgänger.  
Since Juno is here now, that means that if there is another Juno in the kitchen, one of them is fake.

"don't be mad at me, be mad at her," Alex – Ares – says, walking in after Juno and pointing at her.  
"be mad? Why?" I ask, a bit confused.  
Then a horrible thought pops up into my head and I stand up so suddenly my head starts to spin, but I ignore it.  
"did something happen to the kids?" I ask, panicking.  
Alex and Juno look at me, seemingly confused and surprised and then Alex walks out of the room and Juno smiles reassuringly.  
"no, dear. The young ones are fine, they're with Artemis," she says, sitting down at the table next to Jove. I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself down and silencing my doomsday-thoughts.  
The kids are fine, that's all I need to know.  
Mina walks back into the room, a disappointed look in her eyes that tell me the fake Juno wasn't there anymore.  
Damn.  
"then why would I be mad?" I ask, now a bit confused again.  
"you approached us in the park and said you wanted to take the kids home with you, but I had just promised I'd buy Alex some ice-cream, so I invited you to join us instead. You got angry that I 'had the nerve to think I could make decisions about your kids' and Ares defended me, making you angry with him as well. Eventually Ares suggested you might be a doppelgänger – which I guess he was right about, since from the look in your eyes and your earlier panic about the kids you didn't know any of this had happened – and you lost it. You yelled at him and demanded we let you take the kids home, so I asked Alex if he wanted to go with you, but he said he didn't, so I wouldn't let you take them. Well, actually, Alex just grabbed my shirt and looked up at me with scared eyes when I asked him if he wanted to go with you, so that was answer enough for me. After that you stormed off, saying you'd get both of us back for that. Ares doesn't want you to be angry with him, since keeping the kids with us was my idea," she explains.  
I sit back down, my legs too weak to hold me up, and my doomsday-thoughts all come back full-force.  
"they tried to take my babies. They tried to take my babies!" I say. "I don't give a shit if they try to take over your lives, or even if they try to ruin mine, but _they tried to take my babies_!"

"mommy," Alex yells, running over to where I'm sitting and jumping onto my lap.  
Artemis and Ares – damn it, now _I'm_ calling them by those names – walk in, Artemis holding Elizabeth, who I suspect is trying to tell me about her trip to the park, from the excited way she's babbling.  
"so why was it so important I took the little ones inside _right now_?" Artemis asks, obviously confused.  
"I figured winter-girl would want them close when she heard about what'd happened in the park," Ares says, shrugging.  
I smile, hugging Alex close and breathing deeply, trying to calm myself.  
"freakin' hell, that scared me," I mumble.  
Wouldn't help for Alex to see me panicking now after he just had to witness 'me' yelling and ranting in the park.  
"mommy, you're not weird anymore," Alex says happily and I laugh.  
"no, I'm not weird anymore," I say, pretty sure I know what he means by 'weird'. "listen, kid. Whenever I'm 'weird' like that, don't be alone with me, alright? Find one of the others or find a police officer and stay with them instead. Promise me."  
Alex looks confused, but he still nods.  
"I promise," he says.  
"how was that weird? You were a bit irascible, but you didn't seem all that different to me. That's why it was Ares and not me who first suggested you might've been a doppelgänger," Hera says – hell, if I'm going to call some of them by their 'real' names, I might as well call _all_ of them by those names.  
I laugh.  
"do we know for sure everyone here is who they're supposed to be? Because I'm about to reveal something about myself that makes it very easy to expose my doppelgänger," I say.  
Everyone starts asking each other weird questions and eventually they all nod.  
"gummy bears, really?" I ask Ares and when he just shrugs I laugh again and get back on topic.  
"I can't swear in front of children. Not 'I don't swear in front of children', I literally _can't_," I say quietly, so that any possible doppelgänger in other rooms won't be able to overhear.  
"even if I haven't fully, consciously realized that there are children nearby, I'll automatically start using words like 'darn', 'freakin'' or 'chips' instead of the actual words. I can't even tell you 'the actual words' right now, even if I wanted to, because there are kids in the room. I am physically unable to swear in front of children. So when 'I' started yelling in the park, I probably used curse-words, right?" I ask and Hera nods.  
"well, since Alex was there to hear me, I wouldn't have – couldn't have – used those words," I say, shrugging. "I don't know why I'm like that, but I am. Some people can't lie, some people automatically get more polite in front of elderly people, even ones they hate, I can't swear in front of children."

"oh," Athena says, looking like she just figured out the answer to a question that had been bothering her for a while.  
"in that case, I have met your doppelgänger at least twice before," she says when we all look at her questioningly.  
"I was gone most of today because I had some work to do. I met you downtown, you said you were in the mood for something we didn't have in the house, so you'd gone shopping. You said something like 'that place has just about everything a person could ever want to eat, but something as simple as a damn Popsicle is just too much to ask for'. I didn't think much of it at the time, since there are plenty people who like Popsicles, but thinking back now I realize that we were in a rather busy street, with at least four children around that I could see. You wouldn't have used the word 'damn' in that situation," she says.  
I sigh.  
"could you please not use that word in front of Alex? I realize you're doing it to make a point, but..." I say.  
She smiles and nods.  
"very well. There was also this other time, a few days ago, when I saw you with this woman I don't know. I figured she was your mother, since you did say you're here with the kids and your mother, even if she didn't come with you to this house. This was before I'd actually met you, so I didn't bother to go talk to you. It was four days ago, I think. From what you've told me that was the day you arrived here, so it wouldn't be too unreasonable for me to have encountered you then. I don't remember Alex and Elizabeth being there. Anyway, there _were_ children there, just not those two. And you seemed to be angry with this woman. You were calling her all kinds of horrible things that are far worse to say in front of children than...well, than those other words," she says. "like I said, I didn't know you at the time, so I didn't pay too much attention to you, but I do remember thinking you probably shouldn't use such language in public, which is why the memory stuck."  
"this woman you saw..." I saw, walking out of the room to go up to my bedroom and get my handbag.

"...did she look like this?" I finish asking, as if I wasn't just gone for almost a full minute.  
I pull a portrait of my mom with Alex and me out of my wallet and point at my mom.  
"oh no, she looked nothing like that," she says. "nothing at all. Is that really your mother? How did _you_ come out of something like _that_?"  
She looks at me with big eyes, obviously impressed, making me laugh.  
"someone once told me that the babies of two ugly people are usually gorgeous," Pollo says wisely, winking at me, making me laugh even harder.  
"actually, no. I take after my father. He's pretty handsome. He's also the one I got my brains from. He was very smart, which is probably why he decided to get the hell away from my mother while he was still young and pretty enough to find someone better," I say. "but anyway, if we know who the woman was, maybe that'll give us some more insight in the doppelgängers lives. If she was someone with the same 'organization' or whatever they are,..."  
"or she could've just been some random passerby that pissed your foul-mouthed doppelgänger off," Athena says, shrugging.  
"but I can describe her to Pollo later so he can make a sketch of her. You never know if it might come in handy sometimes. At least, if that woman ever makes another appearance, we'll know to be wary of her. _This_ is your mother?" she asks, her mind obviously stuck on that tidbit of useless information, looking back at the picture with bewilderment in her eyes.  
Everyone laughs and I shrug again.  
"I'm afraid so. Super-smart I might be, but I've never been able to figure out what my dad ever saw in her. Normally, when you look like that, you need an amazing personality or some crazy cool talents to get a man like my dad, but she doesn't have that either. She's stupid, annoying, crazy religious in all the worst ways – she's the 'red orange shirt' kind of person – and spiteful. Honestly, the only good thing she had going for her was my dad. Everyone loved being around him so much that they endured having to spend time with her to see him. I'm not saying my dad should never have been with her, seeing as Alex and I would never even have been born had he not been with her, but I simply don't understand why he would ever have wanted to be with her, enough to marry her and have two kids with her," I say.

"maybe she did have good looks or a great personality when he met her, but that just deteriorated over the years," Hera suggests.  
"maybe, but I don't know...it seems a bit unlikely that someone can go from 'super-amazing and pretty' to 'super-annoying, retarded, freaky religious and ugly' in just a few years. Especially since he would had to have still found her attractive seven years ago – since he must have slept with her then for Alex to be here today – and I was _there _seven years ago. I remember her being exactly the same back then as she is today. And while they do say that most early childhood-memories are usually fabricated and fake, seven years ago I was already well in my teens – I was fifteen when Alex was born – so I don't think that really counts as 'early childhood-memories'. Actually, I don't remember her being any different from how she is today _ever_. Not in my teens, not before then, not ever. So whatever it is that attracted my father to her, it wasn't her personality and it wasn't her looks. She's not rich, never has been, so it wasn't money either."  
We talk about the possible reasons my dad could've wanted my mother for a few more hours.  
Athena suggests my mother is actually pretty smart, but just not as smart as me, so I always just saw her as being stupider, but after telling her some of the stupid things my mother has done over the years, she decides that that woman just really is stupid.  
Pollo suggests my father might've had low self-esteem and he thought he simply couldn't get any better, but since I remember my dad to be plenty confident, arrogant even, that idea is also nixed.  
Hera says it could've just been love, but that idea is shot down pretty quickly, since I have no memories of my dad ever saying anything ever remotely loving to or about my mother.  
Zeus suggests my mother might've had something on my dad and she blackmailed him into marrying her and then he tried to make it work – half because she still had that 'thing' on him and half because of the sanctity of marriage – but failed and eventually decided that whatever she had on him, it getting out couldn't possibly be worse than being married to her.  
Eventually we decide that that's as close to the truth as we're going to get.  
It does seem like a reasonable explanation why my dad would marry someone so far beneath him and it seems like something my mother would do.

**Ha, no disclaimer this time. Take that, paranoia.**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Maybe this is just proof of how insane I truly am, but I am on a real ****roll right now, and I credit it to/blame it on just one source right now, and that is Em. She/He currently inspires me, if only because her reviews prove that, even if her words are exaggerated (which my insecure brain assures me they must be), the fact that she at least reads my story and she, for whatever reason, wishes me to continue to keep writing them are not. As such I currently have a decent idea of where the next 10-15 chapters of this story are going to go. I'm in inspiration-ecstasy-mode right now, so I'm writing like crazy at the moment. So I can promise you at least another ten-or-so chapters over the next ten-or-so weeks. Good news for those of you who just wanted more of my own brand of writing, but also bad news for those who were hoping for a quick resolution to this story, because I'm going to be keeping you on the hook for just a few (dozen) chapters more. :)**

**Also, the ideas I have now are no longer 'let's keep writing even if I have nothing more to say right now' types of ideas, they're 'hey, here's something awesome I could be writing at least one or two chapters worth of story about, if not several more' kinds of ideas, so prepare for CHAOS for a LONG time, whoever is still reading at this point, because 'the plot' has finally arrived, and it's not planning to leave anytime soon, from what I can tell. Haha.**

**Anyway, long A/N which few of you even care about at all, so let's get back to the story XD**

**9.**

They say that whenever something terrible happens, like a car-accident or someone getting murdered in front of your eyes, time seems to slow down.  
I've seen car-accidents and though I've never seen anyone getting murdered, I was there when my grandfather had a fatal heart attack, so I'm guessing that's pretty much the same thing.  
Time didn't slow down then.  
It was just him grabbing his chest with a pained look on his face, him collapsing, falling down to the floor and him not breathing anymore.  
It was over in a few seconds that felt like a few seconds.  
Because of that I had always thought that the rumor about time slowing down was just that, a rumor.  
But now I know that's not true.  
As I watch the door open, watch everyone's heads turning to see what's going on, watch the police-officers bursting into the room and hear them yelling things like 'everybody freeze!', time runs just the way it's supposed to.  
One second per second.  
But as I watch one of them grabbing Alex' arm and another one trying to take Elizabeth from Artemis' arms, time really does slow down.  
And that's not the only cliché I'm living today.  
As I hear Alex cry out in pain when one of the officers pulls him towards the door I see red.  
Literally.  
It's like the entire room is bathed in a blood-red light.  
And I realize that the 'I didn't know what I was doing' defense murderers sometimes use when they're put on trial – which I'd always thought was the stupidest defense ever, since how can you not know what you were doing? You were there, weren't you? – might, in some cases, have been the truth.  
Because one second I'm standing there, watching in horror, the next I'm watching one of the officers falling to the floor and I'm standing there, a heavy book in my hands which I guess I used to club him over the head with.  
The other officers now realize that I'm 'a threat', so they focus their attention to me, but like I go crazy when someone puts their hands on my babies, H and Pollo go crazy when someone puts their hands on me.  
And Artemis and Hera go crazy when someone puts their hands on their twin and sons respectively.  
In just a few minutes an all-out war has started with us on one side, the police on the other side and Alex holding Elizabeth tightly in a corner of the room, trying to stay far away from the books and chairs that are being used as weapons.

I guess one good thing came out of this madness.  
This is the first time I've ever gotten any actual undeniable proof that the people on my side are not normal human beings, that they're not delusional or playing some elaborate prank on me.  
They just might be actual gods.  
Ares is fighting several police-officers at the same time and while they're all getting tired, he's still happily punching and kicking away, not even breaking a sweat.  
Hera gets hit with two tasers, but she doesn't even flinch as she rips them off her and keeps fighting – though Zeus spends a little extra 'effort' in taking care of the guys who shot his wife – and Athena isn't even fighting, yet she's still winning.  
She's up against two of them and she makes a lot of small, strategic moves that basically makes the two of them fight each other.  
And if that wasn't enough proof that these guys aren't human, one of the police-officers decide he's had enough of losing this battle and he pulls out his gun, instead of a taser.  
He shoots at Ares, in his eyes the most dangerous one, since he's the one who took out most of the police-officers single-handedly.  
Ares gets hit three times, one of the bullets hitting him right in the throat even, but though that must've hurt and it would've killed a normal person, Ares doesn't even blink and just keeps punching and kicking.  
By the time he has taken out two more officers I can actually see the wounds starting to close right in front of my eyes.  
I'm so distracted by that that one of the police-officers manages to slip past me and he starts to go for the kids.  
Out of nowhere I'm suddenly completely calm.  
I don't know why, maybe the whole 'fighting with the police and there being a threat to my children and the knowledge of these people being actual fucking gods finally really hitting me' fried my brain so much that I just lost it, but whatever the reason, I instantly calm down.  
The red light disappears and time speeds up again, though it's not completely back to normal yet.  
I turn around to look at the cop trying to take Elizabeth from Alex.  
One of the other officers shoots me in the shoulder and I can see the wound starting to bleed, but I can't feel any pain.

"officer, if you don't get away from my children this very second, I'm going to do something only one of us will be able to regret. And in case you're too stupid to know what that means, let me ask you this: have you ever wondered what it would be like to sleep in a body bag?" I ask, not raising my voice or anything, but making sure he realizes I'm being perfectly serious.  
The officer turns around, releasing Elizabeth, looking surprised, confused and more than a little bit terrified.  
Apparently I'm not the only one that realized these people aren't quite human.  
In the corner of my eye I can see the other officers having that same look in their eyes.  
They're desperate to get the hell out of here.  
Alex, still holding Elizabeth tightly, immediately runs away and hides behind Hera, who is no longer fighting.  
"these two children, Alexander and Elizabeth Virou, have been reported missing by their mother two days ago," he says, watching me warily, probably expecting I'll do some weird 'goddess or monster-stuff' if he says the wrong thing.  
Behind me I can hear the fight slowly winding down as all the officers start to realize that not all is what it seems in this situation.  
For one, they came in expecting this to be easy, not for a second thinking they'd be up against freakin' supernatural beings.  
Even with their guns and their training, there is no hope of them winning this fight, so it's in their best interest to try to resolve this peacefully now.  
And while these people have been assaulting police-officers in function, they just might've been doing it because of a misunderstanding, trying to defend their family.  
It's not like they came in here and calmly explained to us why they were here, they just went right ahead trying to take the children away.  
Any mother, supernatural or not, would've reacted the way I did when someone tries to 'steal' her children, even if that person is a police-officer.  
And when they raised their fists at me, it makes sense that my friends or relatives – which I'm guessing they think Pollo and H are, since most people wouldn't come to the conclusion that I just happen to have two boyfriends – would come to my defense.

"well, maybe, if you were any kind of investigator, you'd have realized that that is impossible. How am I supposed to report my two children missing when I'm the mother of only one of them and sister of the other? Alex is my brother, not my son. Besides, Alex might be 'Alexander Virou', but you'll find Liz in the American birth registry as 'Elizabeth Rosa Agetor', not Elizabeth Virou," I say.  
"you registered her as 'Agetor'?" H asks, sounding happy about that, and I laugh.  
"well, that's the last name you gave me back then and since most children take their father's last name, I figured I'd just go with that," I explain. "although, I might have to change that, considering the whole...you know, that thing with the names."  
H laughs and shrugs.  
"we almost always use that last name and it's the one on my drivers-license, so it's fine," he says.  
"now, officer, I suggest you go back to the police station, call up my files or whatever – my name is Leila Liarosa Virou – and check to see that I do, in fact, have one child and her last name is 'Agetor', not Virou. My other child here, Alex Virou, is my brother, Alexander Virou, son of Rebecca Mara and – don't laugh – Prometheus Virou," I say.  
"your father is Prometheus?" H, Pollo, Artemis, Athena, Ares, Hera and Zeus all simultaneously ask, most of them sounding utterly shell-shocked, and I can't help but to laugh.  
"I'm pretty sure he's not the actual titan god of forethought and crafty council – whatever that means, I just read about it on wikipedia – but yeah, that's his name," I say, shrugging. "we just called him Theo, though."  
"you all need to come to the police-station with us. You'll be charged with assaulting police-officers in function," one of the officers says – a ballsy move, all things considering – and I laugh again, but this time with far less humor.  
"actually, no. While I have no problem coming to the police-station with you, I won't be charged with anything, considering in this situation all of you are considered to be 'breaking and entering' and we have a right to defend our home and our family in that situation, at least in America we would, and I can't imagine Greece's laws would be much different. Everything we did here will be considered to be self-defense," I say.  
"you didn't have any reason to believe there was anyone in danger in this house, nor did you (clearly) do nearly enough research into the identity of these children to be able to say you have a sufficient reason to believe they were victims of a kidnapping. I'm guessing you don't have a warrant, as you didn't even bother to try to show one, but even if you did, you would be legally obligated to state your business here before entering this house, even if we wouldn't by law be allowed to deny you access. In other words, none of you have any right to be here right now at all, and anything we did to get you to leave this house is well within our right of self-defense by any western county's laws that I know of or could reasonably envision. If you try to press charges at us for assaulting you, I WILL however 'unreasonably' be pressing charges at all of YOU for breaking into our home and trying to kidnap my brother and my daughter and for assaulting us. And I don't have to keep up my police force's (international) good reputation, please remember that," I say angrily, the others agreeing with or at least silently humoring me.

"Prometheus, huh?" Zeus asks a while later, probably in an attempt to take my mind off this entire mess for a moment, while we're sitting in the police-station's waiting room.  
We're being questioned one by one for some reason, as if we're all part of some mayor crime-syndicate or something.  
Even the person who treated my wound was looking at me with maximum suspicion, probably because we were being treated this way by the other officers.  
Probably no-one ever bothered to tell him what the person he was treating had done to warrant her getting treated for a gunshot-wound inside the police-station.  
Or maybe they did and he was waiting for me to do something supernatural or something.  
"yeah, well, like I said, we all just called him Theo. He loved it when my mom got angry with him, though, because she would go 'Prometheus Virou, if you think I'm going to stand here and let you...' and then he'd make me and Alex laugh by saying 'woman, I've had my liver torn out by eagles a thousand times and that was still more enjoyable than the sound of your voice' or something like that. And then he'd just ignore her completely and start telling us the story of Prometheus for the millionth time," I say, sighing deeply. "man, I miss hearing that stupid story all the time."  
"he didn't keep in touch?" Hera asks, sounding sympathetic.  
I shrug and shake my head.  
"no, when he left, he really left. He just up and abandoned us. I know my mom is unbearable sometimes, but why would he just leave me and Alex like that? He loved us, I know that for sure. And he left on Alex' birthday even. That just doesn't sound like something he would do. And when my birthday came there wasn't even a card or anything, even though he never forgot my birthday. And he was so excited about me being pregnant, said he couldn't wait to see what his grandchild would be like, but when he left, I was only in my third trimester, so he never got to meet her. I've been trying to figure out why he would do something like that for all these months, but so far I'm coming up with nothing," I say, almost in tears now.

Then I smile a bit self-deprecatingly.  
"even now I'm still just waiting for him to come back, you know?" I ask.  
"I know he's coming back, because there's no way he would just leave us like that. Leave mom, sure, I've thought about doing that myself a hundred times, but leave me and Alex? No way. Especially not me. I know this is going to sound arrogant, but I was the best thing that man ever did. He said so himself and unlike when other parents say stuff like that, my dad? He meant it. Said I was his pride and joy and 'even when he brought fire back to man, he made less of a contribution to the wealth of humanity than when he got my mother pregnant with me'. And then he went and told me the story of Prometheus again," I say, laughing. "I know quite a bit about Greek mythology, but there is no story I know as well as that one."  
"do you have a picture of him?" Athena asks.  
She seems to be thinking hard about something.  
I shrug and pull out my wallet, handing her a picture of me and my dad, after which she goes to sit with Pollo and starts talking to him, pointing at the picture a few times.  
Pollo takes out a sketchbook from his bag and starts drawing something which seems to please her.  
After a while Pollo is done drawing and she takes the paper from him, coming back to sit next to me and handing me both the drawing and the picture of my dad.  
"look at this," she says, pointing at the picture Pollo drew.  
"and then look at this," she says, pointing at my father in the photo.  
Pollo drew a man who looks a lot like my dad, only less muscular and with longer hair.  
"yeah, so?" I ask.  
"this is your father," she says, pointing at the photo.  
"and this is what the 'real' Prometheus looked like last we saw of him," she says, pointing at the drawing.  
"seriously?" I ask incredulously.  
"this is my dad," I say, holding up the drawing. "and he sure as hell isn't a god, I would know if he was."

"well, think about it this way," Pollo says, sitting down on the floor at my feet since there aren't any more empty chairs near me.  
"you can't swear in front of children, probably because you have the forethought to know that might lead to those children using the same swearwords in the future, which would be bad, since children shouldn't swear. And you almost always think about future consequences before doing anything. And you're highly intelligent, which is also one of Prometheus' primary characteristics. And Alex – also Prometheus' son – is good at lying without actually lying – which takes a lot of intelligence – and he's a little trickster. And sometimes, when either of you want something, you'll go just a bit too far trying to get it. And you both have the tendency to maybe risk putting yourselves in a bad situation to help other people, especially ones you care about. Sound familiar?" he asks and I sigh.  
"look, I understand where you're coming from with this, but I'm telling you: my dad wasn't a god. If he was, don't you think he would've told me, at any time in the twenty-two years he knew me?" I ask.  
"why would he need to?" Zeus asks. "most gods go out of their way to have some semblance of a normal life, choosing to live as 'humanly' as is possible while still bearing their godly responsibilities. It would make sense that he not tell his human family about his divine nature until something happens that makes it necessary for them to know."  
"and gods can't stay with their human families for too long, because even if we know how to hide it for a while – by changing our hair or just 'letting go', gaining weight and losing muscles – eventually it becomes clear that we don't age, so we have to leave eventually, no matter how much we want to stay," Hera says, her voice soft and kind.  
I sigh and shake my head.  
"nah, not my dad. And even if that were the case, wouldn't he at least have given some excuse for his sudden absence? Even if he was just pretending he found someone smarter and nicer and hotter than my mom and was moving to Fiji with this person or something, setting that up would only take a few days at most. It's not like we would suddenly start to notice that he doesn't age in a few more days, right? And then he still would've been able to send me and Alex letters and Christmas/birthday cards, at least for another couple decades, until he 'supposedly' died of old age. But he just up and left, never looking back, never getting in touch again. So, I'm sorry, but you're wrong about him. He's not a god, he didn't leave by choice and he is coming back," I say, shaking my head and crossing my arms stubbornly.  
None of them seem convinced, but they do realize I don't want to talk about this anymore, so they drop the subject.

Pollo starts interrogating Athena about the woman my doppelgänger was talking to so he can draw her; Hera and Zeus start talking about what they're going to do for their seventh millennium-anniversary, which is coming up soon – if you can call three years from now 'soon' –; Ares, Artemis and Dio are talking about the doppelgängers, trying to come up with simple, fast ways to figure out if everyone is who they're supposed to be, apparently asking simple questions isn't reliable enough for them and stabbing them with a pencil is a bit too dramatic; and H is with the officers in the interrogation room, leaving me alone with my thoughts.  
My dad is not a god, he's not.  
Just because Pollo drew someone that looks a bit like my dad, that doesn't mean they're one and the same.  
Besides, I don't have any real proof that the person in Pollo's picture really is actually the titan god Prometheus.  
He could've just drawn my dad looking a little different than he looked in the picture and said it was Prometheus.  
He didn't start drawing until after he'd seen the picture, after all.  
Why would Athena need that picture to ask Pollo to draw someone they both know very well?  
I feel horrible for suspecting them of trying to trick me like that, but if my dad was a fucking god, I'd know it.  
I mean, I figured these guys out after just a few days, how could my dad have hidden it for several years?  
Then again, these guys went out of their way to hide it, however lazily, but my dad did the exact opposite.  
He talked about the 'real Prometheus' all the time and – if he was the real god, which he really isn't – he even used his real name.  
So even if I did figure out that he happens to share his name with a mythological figure, I'd just chalk it up to coincidence.  
And by constantly telling me about the real Prometheus and making jokes about being him, he pretty much completely absolved himself from any and all suspicion.  
Hiding in plain sight.  
Of course, that would be if he actually was a god...which he isn't.  
Really.  
Now if only I could erase this seed of doubt these guys planted in my brain, the world would be perfect again.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: ****Holy sh*t, there is a person on this planet who is not me who knows who Epimetheus is and what he means? That's just ... Wow.**  
**And oh, believe me, insecurities or not, there is not a snowball's chance in hell anyone could ever enjoy reading this more than at most half as much as I am enjoying writing it. :D**

**...**

**Disclaimers are for the weak.**

"well, that was interesting," Alex says happily as he drops down to the floor and starts picking up his crayons, which have been scattered all over the floor during the fight.  
I sigh deeply seeing the destruction the battle caused to this usually so beautiful room.  
During all the chaos of the fight itself and then the 'arrest' thereafter, I never really got a chance to look around here rationally and see this mess.  
Now I do and it's horrible.  
Tables have been overturned,  
Alex' toys and crayons are all over the place.  
There is blood on the carpet.  
One of the flower vases has been shattered.  
"well, I guess we'd better start cleaning up," H says, sounding perfectly cheerful, despite it being his home that was desecrated like this.  
Ares offers to 'help' with the cleaning, but H chases him away after only a few minutes, as Ares' idea of 'cleaning up' is just him aggressively throwing things towards the general location of where they were supposed to be.  
And no, he doesn't check to see if they're breakable before tossing them either.  
Alex was laughing his little ass off the whole time – I have a suspicion Ares is quickly starting to become his favorite uncle – and then started imitating him, tossing his crayons towards the place where he'd been gathering them, no longer bothering to just walk the two steps, so H sends him away too.  
The two walk off laughing and loudly talking to each other about how we're all just too 'stingy' and how what they were doing was so much faster and easier and even if it was a bit destructive and inefficient to the point of it being straight-up counterproductive, at least it was fun.  
"he's going to rub off on Alex," H complains, gathering Alex' crayons and toys before cleaning up anything else, which makes me smile.  
"I'm pretty sure he already has," I just say, laughing as I pick up the pieces of what seems to have once been a really expensive vase.  
Today is just full of clichés.

I flop down on a half-destroyed couch that I would be happy to never get up from again.  
Messing up this room was easy enough and it only took about twenty minutes, but cleaning it up again...damn.  
I flinch when my arm stings from the abrupt movement and Pollo smacks himself on the forehead, another cliché.  
"duh, I should've dealt with that right when we came in," he says and then he casually starts taking off my T-shirt.  
Now, anywhere else I wouldn't have minded that at all, but seeing as we're still in the living room with everyone watching, I stop his hands.  
"uh...what'cha doin'?" I ask and he grins, guessing my thoughts.  
"well, I _was_ going to heal your wound, but if you'd rather I do something else to you, I'm sure I could convince the others to leave the room for a while," he says.  
I just glare at him annoyedly and he laughs before going back to taking my shirt off.  
He unwraps the bandages and puts his hand on the wound, making me flinch again.  
"sorry," he mumbles, but he still presses a bit harder.  
The wound starts to feel warmer and warmer and it even gets to the point of it burning uncomfortably, but I don't say anything about it.  
Because I'm thinking that, well, he's supposed to be the god of medicine, right?  
So wouldn't he know what he's doing?  
But when the burning starts to really hurt and it's feeling as though he's pushing a naked flame against my already painful shoulder, I start trying to push him away.  
But he resists and just casually shoves my hands aside.  
And he's not even saying anything, he's just looking at me 'apologetically' as he sets my arm on fire.  
Well, that's what this feels like, anyway.  
So I try to pull my body away from him instead, but my back is up against the backrest of the couch.  
I have nowhere to go, I'm trapped.  
And just when the pain gets so bad that I'm about to take a swing at Pollo, just to make him let me go, he smiles and in that grin I can see great relief and a little bit of pride and then he finally pulls his hand away.  
The burning starts to ebb away, far too slowly for my liking, but there's nothing I can do about that now.  
I look up at his face to see him smiling down at me sheepishly.  
"yeah, healing hurts," he says and he shrugs. "and healing too much, too fast, that hurts a lot."  
I look at my shoulder and my brain nearly short-circuits at the sight of the smooth, wound-free skin there.  
I run my fingers over the unmarred skin and immediately forget all the pain I felt just now and I can't help but smile.  
Normally a gunshot-wound would leave a pretty nasty scar, right?  
But this looks like nothing ever happened at all.  
"huh," is the only thing I can think up to say.  
Pollo smiles again, this time looking _very_ proud.  
"it's not like in the movies, where the person being healed doesn't feel a thing or it only tingles a bit and it's not pretty or shiny and it takes a bit longer than it would've on television, but it's still pretty awesome, right?" he asks, making me laugh, and I nod.  
I rub my shoulder, trying to get rid of the last remnants of the pain, and reach for my shirt.  
Even if I now understand the logic of him taking my shirt off, which he did only so he could heal my wound, that doesn't mean I make a habit out of sitting half-naked in public.

Alex and Ares come back into the room and Alex immediately walks over to where I'm sitting and sits down on the floor at my feet, which seems to be his favorite position, and starts playing with his dinosaurs.  
He never plays with his toys at the table, which I guess is a good thing, but that also means that whether we're at home or out – even when we're at a restaurant or something – he'll always sit down on the floor at my feet whenever he's allowed to play with his toys.  
That gets me a lot of weird looks when I take him out to McDonalds.  
Especially since he'll just stare at me until I turn my chair just so that he can sit at my feet.  
If I wouldn't, he'd probably just crawl under the table and start playing there.  
Nobody can tell me why he does that, so I always figured his habit of sitting at my feet is something like my habit of using non-swearwords around children.  
It's just something we do, not something we ever really think about doing.  
It is _not_ some weird genes we've inherited from our divine father, I can tell you that much.  
"so, all done cleaning up?" Ares asks, smiling cheerfully.  
"no thanks to you," H grumbles, but he's also smiling, so I'm guessing this is like a running gag between those two.  
"we should start working on our planning," I say, taking Elizabeth from Hera's arms – now that I'm not wounded anymore there's no reason I can't carry her myself – and grabbing one of the pencils Athena has neatly organized on the table, she even sorted them on color and size.  
I grab one of several notebooks she also stacked there – probably suspecting we'd be writing a lot of stuff down in the near future, seeing as we've been writing stuff down almost every other time we've all gathered – and start making my own planning.

I plan in at one 'fun activity' per day and at least one hour of 'private time with the kids', so I don't make the same mistake I've been making in the last couple of days, stressing myself out and completely forgetting I even have kids.  
With a preset planning for spending time with them, it should be impossible for me to 'forget' them anymore.  
"we should probably set aside a few hours a day for just 'gathering', since we still have a billion things to discuss and a million more things to plan for," Artemis says, picking up one of the notebooks as well and starting on her planning.  
"but if we're going to have to plan our work, which is based mostly on 'hey, that human just did something stupid, I should go over there and fix it', that could become a serious issue," Ares says, picking up the next notebook and soon everyone has their own notebooks in hand and is trying desperately to plan the next week second for second, which is a lot harder than we'd thought it'd be.  
"sure, there are some difficulties with this, but we don't really need to plan anything we do inside the house, right? As long as we don't walk out the door, that'd be fine. We can just put that down as 'being home'. I mean, you think I'm going to write down 'having sex with H', 'having sex with Pollo' or 'having sex with H _and _Pollo'? Even if I could plan that, I wouldn't. Besides, take yesterday for example, I just suddenly felt like it, so I did it. I was still inside the house, so at times like that it doesn't really matter whether I'm upstairs with someone or downstairs with someone. As long as there's someone there who can verify I haven't ever walked out the door without telling anyone and then walked back in 'a changed woman', that's good enough, right? So if there are moments where you don't have anything planned, just put down 'activities inside the house' or something. And then, if you ever want to leave for whatever reason – to go to the park or the grocery store or whatever – or find that 'some human did something stupid and you need to go fix it', you can, you just need to tell three people that you're leaving first. That would take five minutes at most," I say.  
"and also, worst case scenario, we could always put some kind of alarm on the doors and windows so no one could enter or leave this house without the others knowing. Sure, that seems a bit dramatic, and I'm definitely not saying 'we should get right on that', but it is an option we have."

"but anyhow, if anyone was wondering, I just figured out the fastest, probably easiest _and_ most reliable way to figure out who's real and who isn't which sadly doesn't involve stabbing people."  
Everyone looks at me with such hopeful eyes that I can't help but laugh.  
I'm surrounded by actual, factual _gods _and they're all looking to _me _for the solution to their problem.  
Is there anything in this world that could stroke a girl's ego quite as much as _that_?  
"actually, it's a bit hard to believe no-one came up with this before. These people have our looks, but not our actual identities, right? And since I'm guessing even gods keep up with the times, everyone here has a cellphone, right? So what if we buy a disposable phone and program all our numbers into it? Then, when we need to be sure everyone is who they say they are, we just send out a text-message from that phone to everyone present, then anyone who _doesn't _get the text – or doesn't respond to it with a 'yeah, I'm here' or whatever – probably isn't the person they say they are. We lock that phone away in a vault or something and don't let anyone but Zeus – the only adult here who doesn't have a doppelgänger yet, as far as we know – have the key or code to open that vault. Of course, we'd test his actual 'Zeus-ness' _very _rigorously before giving him the key or code, just in case. That way the doppelgängers won't ever be able to get to that phone to change the numbers or send a 'fake' text or something like that, because even if Zeus _does _end up getting a doppelgänger eventually – or he already has one that we just don't know about yet –, that person won't have the key or code to open the vault and none of us would be able to accidentally give it to him, because _we_ wouldn't have it either. Only the _real _Zeus would be able to get to that phone. The doppelgängers might have our looks and voices and they might know some of our information, which means they might get through a questioning unnoticed, but they don't have our phones, since _we_ still have those. There is no way for two separate phones to have the same number, so they can't possibly have a phone with the real one's phone-number, or even if they somehow managed to figure out a way to get two phones to have the same number or to receive texts sent to _our _phones, the real us would still also get the message. So if any of us get a text-message from the 'doppelgänger-phone', we can just send a message back saying 'I'm 'there and there', so don't say anything important in front of me or let the kids leave with me'," I say, laughing again when everyone looks a bit bewildered, as if trying to figure out how it's possible we knew about this problem for _days_ and nobody had ever thought of something as easy and simple as that."when you start thinking too difficultly, the simplest solutions are often the hardest to figure out," I say.  
"like when I was stuck on the 'going from Zeus to Jove'-thing. I was thinking all kinds of difficult, so 'it's just short for Jupiter, duh' never even crossed my mind. But anyway, this solution is a bit like the password-thing, as in when the doppelgängers find out what we're doing, if they do somehow get our text-messages, they might start sending 'I'm not there' whenever they get the message and that would be a problem, since one of the real ones would then be a suspect, but only if they do have this technology which I'm almost certain is non-existent, so that's a very big 'if'. Or, when we get the 'I'm not there' message from anyone, _then_ we start asking them control-questions. That would be better either way, because the more little questions we ask in front of one of the doppelgängers, the more they know about us. Like when H asked me about the number of times he asked me to go home with him when we first met and Pollo asked me about the number of ladies at the table when _we _first met, those are both questions the doppelgängers could know the answers to now, since they were asked – and answered – in front of at least one doppelgänger, so he or she could tell my doppelgänger the answers and that will give her a better chance of getting through the questions-test next time. So it would be best if we only used those questions as a last resort and only to whatever person we already suspect is a doppelgänger."

"these doppelgängers have been causing so much trouble it's not even funny anymore," Ares says, throwing his notebook down – apparently giving up on trying to make a planning – and sighing deeply.  
"I love a bit of chaos as much as the next person, but even I have limits. Between constantly having to worry if the person I'm talking to is the person they claim to be, trying to keep up with my normal responsibilities, and now looking out for attacks or kidnappings from friend and foe alike, I'm _this_ close to saying 'screw this, I'm going home'."  
"you think _you _have it bad?" I ask annoyedly.  
"I came here to find my baby-daddy and to have a relaxed vacation with my kids. I thought the worst things that could happen were that H got angry or that he would reject Liz and she'd have to grow up without a dad and that my mom would try to screw up my vacation. Instead, I'm currently sitting in a room with eight _gods; _there are people all around me that aren't who they pretend to be, though they look and sound – and often act – _exactly _like the 'real' people, and I have no idea _why _they're pretending to be us; one of those 'fake' people looks like _me_, so they can screw up my entire life without me even realizing it until it's already too late to fix it; I have _two _boyfriends, neither of which live anywhere _near _my home, so if I want to stay with them, I'll have to leave everything I've ever known behind; someone tried to kidnap my babies and when that didn't work they sent the police to take them from me, for reasons unknown; I got _shot_; my MIA dad may or may not be a god himself, which would make me and Alex demi-gods, so I've got all the ingredients for an _identity-crisis _here, which would also put a hole in my theory that he didn't leave by choice, since it's not so easy to blackmail or kidnap a _god, _so maybe I really was just abandoned like yesterday's trash after all; my flight home is _tomorrow – _and I doubt I'll be able to catch it – and I'm supposed to get back to work in two days, which is obviously not going to happen, so I'll probably get fired; I'm kinda in the middle of the worst fight I've ever had with my mom, so she might actually kick me out of her house and make me _homeless, _plus she'll try to take Alex from me and, being his mother, she'll likely succeed too; and you're complaining that you're _not having fun? _You know what? Screw you. You try taking on even _half _the stuff I'm going through right now and then _maybe _you'll have the right to complain," I say, gritting my teeth in annoyance.  
Yes, I know I'm lashing out and I shouldn't do that, but I can't help myself.  
Pollo sits down next to me and puts his arm around me for comfort.  
H is sitting on the other side of the couch and just looks at me with such adoration in his eyes it makes me forget about all the drama for one short second.

"I'm sorry if it sounded like I was trying to downplay the things you have to deal with, I wasn't. I was just saying we _all _have more on our plates then we can – or at least care to – handle right now. You most of all, you're right about that. For us these 'weird supernatural things' are perfectly normal. It's not as much of a surprise to us to find out someone is a god or something like that, since we deal with those things every single day. To us the idea that your father might be the _real _Prometheus inspires no more of a reaction than us thinking 'huh, will you look at that', but to you that puts your entire childhood and even your very own _identity _in a whole new perspective that you might not be thrilled about, I do understand that," Ares says, sounding perfectly reasonable and making me feel even worse about my crazy outburst.  
"maybe they can't imitate children," Athena suddenly says, surprising and confusing us all.  
"you said, and I quote, 'someone tried to kidnap my babies and when that didn't work they sent the police to take them from me, for reasons unknown'," she explains. "but what if they simply cannot imitate children? They can imitate you all they want, but that won't get them very far on the long run. For now, while you are nearly always in or around this house, it doesn't matter whether or not they have your kids with them, since they can just say 'Hera has them' or something. But what if, days or weeks from now, mother leaves and goes home with father? If we _all _leave? When Hermes is working and you go out with the kids, what will they tell Pollo when he meets 'you', but the kids aren't with you? You might get stressed out and forget about them _in here_, where there are several other people that you trust at least enough to pick up the slack, but what if we're all gone? Nobody's gonna believe you just _left _them, forgot them in the park or something. And even if they do, what will 'you' tell them then? 'oh, yeah, I left them in the park. I'll go pick them up in an hour or so, but first I have to do some other things that are _way _more important, like finding out secrets about myself or others'? To properly imitate you, they'd need to imitate – or acquire – your children, otherwise they can never fully convince others that they are you."

"we could just go to your home," Zeus says, confusing everyone yet again.  
"two, no, actually three or even _four_ of your problems could be solved if we all just hop on a plane and go to your home," he explains. "you could just go about your everyday life, keeping your job for as long as you want it, although Hermes and Apollo have more than enough money to support you and even if you separate from them eventually, which would surprise me, after everything you're doing – or are at least trying to do – and are sacrificing for _our_ sakes right now, several of us wouldn't mind supporting you financially for as long as you live, if you'd ask us to, so you don't really _need _that job at all. That's one problem solved. _We_ can work from wherever we are at any given time – we have ways to travel around the world that are too complicated to try to explain right now – so it doesn't matter to us where we are as we're trying to solve this thing with the doppelgängers. You can keep Apollo and Hermes close and maybe they'll even find some things to love about your hometown so they won't want to come back, so you won't have to choose between them and your life back there. That's another problem – potentially – solved. We'll have a better chance of finding your father or at least finding out the truth about who he is and what happened to him if we're staying at – or close to – his last known address, so that gives us a better opportunity to solve _another _one if your problems. And these doppelgängers evidently know _this town _very well and they know the places we frequent here. Going to your home might put them in a, to them, completely unknown location. They'll be far more likely to make mistakes and be exposed in an unfamiliar environment. We already have the fake Athena in captivity. If we manage to catch them all that would solve the entire problem."  
I sigh and shrug.  
"would catching them help_, _yes," I concede. "but it would _not _solve this problem. My dad always taught me that you can never truly solve a problem that you don't understand. You can only avoid or delay it. So our first order of business shouldn't be to get rid of the doppelgängers, it should be to try to find out who they are, how they're taking on our appearances and why they're here in the first place. What is their endgame? You can't become a god just by looking and acting like one and while they might be able to take over _my _life, there's just no merit in that for them. Demi-god or no, I lead a 'human' life. I have a job, I have two kids to take care of, I have a _really _annoying mother, I have a father who I somewhat _hope _is a god because otherwise he might have become the victim of a violent crime; I have to get up early every Sunday to go to church,... Why would they try so hard to take over _my _life? Sure, they probably only imitated me to get to you guys easier, but what would be the point of that on the long run? That would help _your _doppelgängers get whatever it is they want, but it wouldn't do _my _doppelgänger any good, right? So what are they after? And if they _are _after your entire _identities_, what did they promise _my _doppelgänger to make her – or him, I don't know how genders work with those people – cooperate? Are we even sure there's only one of them for every one of us? Maybe the one in the basement is only _one _of Athena's doppelgängers. Or maybe it's the other way around, maybe we caught the one who acts as Athena's doppelgänger _and _mine _and _Artemis' and she would've been Hera's too if we hadn't caught her, but we did and that's why they needed to initiate a new one. I don't know, but I do know there's going to be no solving this problem, whether we're in Greece, America or anywhere else until I _do _know."


	11. Update

**Hey guys. **

**Sorry about the delay for the new chapter.  
****I mentioned before that I had been sick, well, I ended up in the hospital.  
****Nothing serious, but they wanted to do two million tests, partially because they just have no idea what's going on with me and partially (probably) because of the whole panic about the corona virus that's going on here so they're being extra careful about these kinds of stuff now.  
****I'm back home now (I still don't know what I have, I need yet more testing, but at least it's definitely not corona haha), but I haven't been able to write at all, so I'll get right on that this weekend, which means the next chapter is coming soon, it'll just be another few days, a week at most. **

**Sorry again.**

**EDIT**

**Ok, so obviously I didn't manage to get the new chapter out in a week as I had promised.  
****I am (as many people are) currently in total lock-down because of corona and I'm not dealing with the isolation well.  
I get my writing inspiration from things I see or do in my real life, but obviously I'm not seeing or doing much of anything right now, so my inspiration is at an all time low.  
It's not just this story either, I can't seem to get anywhere with any of the stories I'm currently writing.  
I do have a good idea of where I want this story to go, but every time I sit down to write, I just find myself staring at an empty page until I get too frustrated and just give up.  
So I'm not sure how long it'll be until the next chapter is up.  
I hope it won't be until the whole lock-down is over, as that might last another few months, from what I've heard, so that would really suck, but we'll see I guess.  
I'm sorry to anyone who was looking forward to reading more of this story.  
I promise it's not discontinued or anything like that, like the wishes story was, this is just a temporary setback.  
I have rough summaries of the next 30 or so chapters already written and all the major story-beats are already planned out.  
I just need to find the inspiration to fill in the details, to turn those 4-5 sentence summaries into whole chapters somehow, somewhere.**

**On a more positive note, I did finally get new medication for my digestive problems, so I'm not constantly getting sick anymore, so there's that. :)**


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